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Courses

FLME 321 Advanced Topics in Film, Television, and New Media

Offers students the opportunity to delve deeply into a specific area within the critical study of film, television, and/or new media, and to develop research skills necessary for original scholarly inquiry. Topics may range across different critical, theoretical, and historical concerns. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.

Distribution Area

Arts and Humanities

Credits

1 course

Fall Semester information

Seth Friedman

321A: Advanced Topics:Global Media


Spring Semester information

Karin Wimbley

321A: Advanced Topics:Ryan Coogler: Auteur Cinema and the Politics of Storytelling

This course explores the films of Ryan Coogler as a case study in auteur cinema, examining how his work develops recurring artistic signatures while engaging urgent social and political issues. From Fruitvale Station (2013) to Creed (2015), Black Panther (2018), and Wakanda Forever (2022), Coogler's films address themes of race, community, masculinity, grief, and collective memory. Students will study his directorial style--visual composition, sound design, narrative structure, and performance--while interrogating the industrial contexts of both independent filmmaking and blockbuster franchises. Readings from auteur theory, Black film criticism, and cultural studies will situate Coogler's oeuvre within larger debates about authorship, representation, and power in contemporary cinema.