The new major in Cinema and Digital Media is now open, as of Fall 2015.
Students who wish to declare will be majoring in Cinema and Digital Media from now on. See complete details about the new major here, including the major checklist PDF, which lists all courses in the new major. Cinema and Digital Media courses are currently designated with the letters CTS. Also please see TCS and FMS courses for additional course descriptions.
Survey of films based on works of Japanese literature, emphasis on pre-modern and early modern texts. Introduction to major directors of Japan, with a focus on cinematic adaptation. Lectures and readings in English. Films in Japanese with English subtitles. (Same course as Japanese 156.) Offered in alternate years.
Critical and theoretical approaches to the emergence of new technologies since the invention of photography. Examine various approaches to media (formalist, semiotic, structuralist, Frankfurt School, cybernetics, visual and gamer theory).
Study of the ubiquitous presence of CCTV, face recognition software, global tracking systems, biosensors, and data mining practices that have made surveillance part of our daily life. Study boundaries between security and control, information and spying.
Rather than treat “videogames and culture” as two distinct categories that play off one another, in this course we will examine the community histories and material practices that have evolved alongside videogames as a mass medium, cultural commodity, and digital technology.
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—1 hour; film viewing—3 hours. Analysis of film form and narrative, including cinematography, editing, and sound. Issues in film studies, including authorship, stardom, race, gender, class, and cultural identity. Includes introduction to selected cinematic movements and national film traditions. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt | AH, OL, VL, WC, WE.
History of representations of vampires and horror generally from the 19th through 21st centuries. Emphasis on transnational history of the horror genre; psychologies of horror effects; issues of race, gender, and class; intersections with prejudice, medicine, modernity. (Same course as German 45.)
Prerequisite: course 1. Exploration of representations of Italian-American identity in American (U.S.) cinema. Analysis of both Hollywood and independently produced films, especially as they represent ethnicity, gender, and social class of Italian Americans.
Prerequisite: course 1 and upper-division standing, or consent of instructor. Italian cinema of the 21st century in the context of profound cultural and social changes in Italy since World War II. Productions by representative directors such as Amelio, Giordana, Moretti, Muccino are included. Knowledge of Italian not required.
Lecture—3 hours; film viewing—3 hours. Prerequisite: course 1. Study of an
aspect of American film history (such as the silent era; the studio system; U.S. avant-garde cinema), including the influences of technological, economic, regulatory, cultural, and artistic forces. Not open for credit to students who have completed Humanities 124 unless topic differs. May be repeated two times for credit if topic differs. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt | ACGH, AH, DD, OL, VL, WE.
Prerequisite: course 1. A study of one or more of the film genres (such as the documentary, the musical, film noir, screwball comedy, or the western), including genre theory and the relationship of the genre(s) to culture, history, and film industry practices. May be repeated two times for credit if topic differs.
Prerequisite: course 1 or consent of instructor. Survey of the conceptual frameworks used to study film (including semiotics, psychoanalysis, spectatorship, auteur, genre and narrative theories). Historical survey of major film theorists.
History of Russian film; film and social revolution, the cult of Stalin, dissident visions; film and the collapse of the Soviet empire; gender and the nation in Russian film. Course taught in English; films are in Russian with English subtitles.
German filmmakers of the 1960s-1980s such as Fassbinder, Herzog, Syberberg, Brückner, Schlöndorf, Kluge, Wenders. Knowledge of German not required. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor.
Weimar Cinema – the diverse film culture of 1920s Germany – gave birth or early impetus to some of the most important film genres for global cinema, including horror, film noir, science fiction, and melodrama. The course will chart how it was within the context of Weimar Germany and, above all, its uneasy confrontation with modernity and modernization that the horror film, film noir, science-fiction film, and the melodrama all emerged.
Lecture/discussion—3 hours; film viewing—3 hours. Prerequisite: course 1, upper division standing, or consent of instructor. Group study of a special topic in film, focusing on a national tradition, a major filmmaker, or a specific era. May be repeated three times for credit. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt | AH, OL, VL, WE. —F, S. (F, S.) Clover, Constable, Fisher, Heyer-Caput, Lu, Simmon, Smoodin
Variable—1-5 hours; independent study—3-15 hours. Prerequisite: senior standing; GPA of at least 3.500; consent of instructor. Guided research on a topic in Film Studies in preparation for the writing of an honors thesis in course 195H or the creation of an honors project in course 196H. May be repeated two times for credit. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, III. (I, II, III.)
