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 Friedman321A: Advanced Topics:Global Media
Spring Semester information
Karin Wimbley321A: 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.