Film Studies

Film, video, and other related media are ubiquitous in contemporary society. Motion pictures combine art and text, creating a powerful medium that often dominates local cultural discourse, even as it is internationally accessible. Higher education engages the study of film and teaches students to think, write and speak critically about their products, which increasingly reflect us, define us, persuade us, market us, and tell our stories. In the past forty years film studies has become a significant and continuous intellectual presence in academic and the world of higher education. Students used to major in film as a sort of apprenticeship, as a prelude to going into the movie business. Today, however, students all over the country--and world--are majoring in film for a variety of reasons: to teach, to succeed in the business world, to become managers, to prepare for graduate study, to have a career in the armed forces, to prepare for running large charitable foundations, and simply to try and change the world.

Requirements for a major

Film Studies

Requirements for a minor

Film Studies

Courses in Art History

Documentary Film

This discussion-based course is structured thematically around such topics as representations of the family, subjectivity and selfhood, crime and justice, sexuality, trauma, and war propaganda. We view a wide variety of documentary styles: poetic, ethnographic, direct cinema, government sponsored, social advocacy, rockumentary, mockumentary, pseudo-documentary, and different hybrid forms. These styles and themes are used as springboards to explore larger questions: What is the source of our fascination with the real? How can documentary evoke discourses of truth, realism and authenticity when the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction have become ever more fluid; when digital technology makes possible the absence of any camera or original referent from the "real" world; and when documentarians make use of strategies such as staging, re-enactments, discontinuous editing, or various poetic devices? What are the conventions of documentary film practice, that provide the necessary impression of "authenticity;" when and for what purposes have these conventions been challenged? What is the ethical responsibility of a filmmaker to his/her subjects who are, after all, not actors, but people going about the business of their lives? To understand better the complex nature of representation, we also take into account how context, expectations, institutional supports, viewing communities, cultural frameworks, and historical and social forces (and their interaction) all contribute to the making of meaning in visual images.

Courses in Communication and Theatre

Film and Culture

This course is a critical examination of motion pictures as a medium of communication. In addition to looking at the films as texts to be "read," this course considers the institutional contexts in which films are produced, as well as the various reception contexts in which audiences see films. As a course in communication, we begin from the perspective that motion pictures are an important and meaningful part of the way we produce and re-produce our culture. Importantly, the course is not only concerned with how film texts communicate, but also how we communicate about films, as both fans and critics.

Courses in Literature

Introduction to Film

Designed to develop students' ability to understand and appreciate film as art and to acquaint them with a representative group of significant works and the characteristics of film as a type of literature.

Courses in Film Studies

Introduction to Film

(cross-listed with ENG 167) Designed to develop students' ability to understand and appreciate film as art and to acquaint them with a representative group of significant works and the characteristics of film as a type of literature.

Film and Culture

(cross-listed with COMM 237) This course is a critical examination of motion pictures as a medium of communication. In addition to looking at the films as texts to be 'read,' this course considers the institutional contexts in which films are produced, as well as the various reception contexts in which audiences see films. As a course in communication, we begin from the perspective that motion pictures are an important and meaningful part of the way we produce and re-produce our culture. Importantly, the course is not only concerned with how film texts communicate, but also how we communicate about films, as both fans and critics.

Documentary Film

(cross-listed with ARTH 250 or COMM 291) This discussion-based course is structured thematically around such topics as representations of the family, subjectivity and selfhood, crime and justice, sexuality, trauma, and war propaganda. We view a wide variety of documentary styles: poetic, ethnographic, direct cinema, government sponsored, social advocacy, rockumentary, mockumentary, pseudo-documentary, and different hybrid forms. These styles and themes are used as springboards to explore larger questions: What is the source of our fascination with the real? How can documentary evoke discourses of truth, realism and authenticity when the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction have become ever more fluid; when digital technology makes possible the absence of any camera or original referent from the 'real' world; and when documentarians make use of strategies such as staging, re-enactments, discontinuous editing, or various poetic devices? What are the conventions of documentary film practice, that provide the necessary impression is the ethical responsibility of a filmmaker to his/her subjects who are, after all, not actors, but people going about the business of their lives? To understand better the complex nature of representation, we also take into account how context, expectations, institutional supports, viewing communities, cultural frameworks, and historical and social forces (and their interaction) all contribute to the making of meaning in visual images.

Topics in Film History

Introduces students to pivotal eras in cinema history (both U.S. and international) as well as questions of historiography. Courses will engage with historical approaches to film industries, film texts, and/or film audiences. Topics may include courses such as: U.S. Film History 1897-1950; Hollywood Since 1950. May be repeated for credit.

Topics in Film Cultures and Traditions

(may be cross-listed with ENG 155 or M L 164) This course offers intensive examination of specific issues in film cultures and traditions, often those at the center of current critical interest. Topics for this course are conceived broadly to encompass studies of national cinemas, specific directors, filmmaking practices, and specific genres. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.

Film Theory

Provides students who already have a background in introductory film studies with a sense of the most important theoretical issues in cinema. Topics may include the following: early film theory; film and (anti-) narrative; auteur theory; genre theory; semiotics; psychoanalysis; ideology and politics; feminist film theory; theories of documentary; postmodernism; post-colonialism and ¿third cinema¿; new media and the digital era. Prerequisites: FILM 100 (ENG 167) or FILM 200 (COMM 237).

Topics in Gender, Sexuality and Cinema

(may be cross-listed with ENG 390 or COMM 401) Introduces students to the importance of gender as a category of film scholarship. Issues covered may include: women in film, masculinity and film, feminist filmmaking and film scholarship, women filmmakers. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.

Film Studies Senior Project

This capstone course will be taken during senior year and will be a culmination of the Film Studies major. With the help for the Film Studies director and faculty advisors, students will design and complete an original project, either scholarly or creative. Candidates will then be interviewed by an interdisciplinary faculty committee.

Courses in Modern Languages in English

The Cinema

A. France; B. Spain/Latin America; C. Italy; D. Germany; E. Russia; F. Japan; G. China; H. World. Screening and study of representative masterworks of cinema, the film as art and a product of culture. No knowledge of the foreign language is required. Credit toward a major or minor may be given at the discretion of the department.

Courses in Religious Studies

Religion and Film

This course uses major theories of religion in order to investigate religious themes and symbols in a number of contemporary films. In this course we use the screening of a dozen or so religiously evocative films in order to open up a discursive space within which we can think critically about ourselves and the time we live in. In order to do this we look at the ways in which powerful religious themes have been dealt within film. At times the religious themes addressed inmoves are overt and trandition-specific while at other times they are covert and universal. Throughout the course we interrogate filmic texts in order to understand the ways in which religious themes are dealth with through the cinematic medium. But we also allow the films to interrogate us! In this class we view the screening of the films as an opportunity for us to reflect upon the nature of religion as we try to come to a better understanding of its place within society and our own lives. The purpose of the course is twofold: first, students learn how to think critically about religion and its place as a social and cultual force in the contemporary world; second, they learn how to apply a critical attitude and critical tools to view films and other aspects of popular culture.