Film & Media Studies

This interdisciplinary course practices a critical way of examining contemporary cultural practices. In these practices of production, dissemination, and reception, masculinity and femininity are permanently (re)constructed, just as are concepts of class, race, ethnicity, and geopolitical location. Students study cultural practices manifest through popular culture as well as examine the cultural logic underlying art practice and visual ethnographic research. In all, old and new identities are contested and reconstructed; the interaction between text and image is the main focus.

This course introduces students to the basic concepts, technical analyses, and theories of Film as an art form. Students explore topics such as mise-en-scène; cinematography; framing; editing; narrative; genre, and author, as well as a survey of critical perspectives on film. Students are required to do the assigned reading and view assigned films as noted on the course syllabus prior to each class meeting.

This course traces the development of films in the “young cinema” of the 1960s in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Films by Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard are studied as well as Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Milos Forman, Jerzy Skolimowski, and Roman Polanski. The course uses various examples to examine how movies can undermine conventions and break with classical cinema. The course considers the notion of modernity with relation to the following: what does modernity count for; what does it mean; can it be categorized as an aesthetic category; is it representative a historical period; and why did it have its renewal in the 1960s.

This class focuses on the process of creating a TV program. By creating an actual TV program in the studio, students learn and practice everything about TV program production. 

This course closely examines several Taiwanese films from the past two decades, and through them, discovers what prominent phenomena and changes have been taking place in Taiwan's social culture. Taiwanese films present themselves as various attempts to make conversations with the world that we call Taiwan and live in. This course explores and reflects on Taiwanese social culture by not just watching but also reading Taiwanese films. The course intends for the students to familiarize themselves with Taiwanese history in the recent past, crucial events, contemporary social issues as well as cultural conditions. Through this course students expect to understand the social development vis-a-vis cinema in Taiwan. Students look closely at the emergence of Taiwan New Cinema in the 1980s as well as the socio-political and -cultural contexts in which it emerged. This course moves on to discuss various subject matters and social trends in Taiwan from the 1990s on; students also look at the films produced in Taiwan in relation to those matters and trends.

This course guides students through the history of Italian film, from its beginnings to the present day, using films shot in the Eternal City which has captured the minds of filmmakers for over a century. The course reviews the main currents and genres, from silent film to the “white telephone” films, from Neorealism to the Commedia all’italiana, from the great directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Mario Monicelli, Ettore Scola, Nanni Moretti, Cristina Comencini, and Paolo Sorrentino. Students watch these self-representations of Italians and their capital city to deepen their understanding of Italy and Italians, how they presented themselves to the world, what they were really like, and what they aspired to be. The lens of cinema allows students to understand the shifting cultural identity of Italy over the years, on both the local and global stage. Students experience the “Hollywood on the Tiber” first-hand by visiting the famous places where the films assigned to the course were made. Students participate on a special excursion to Rome’s world-famous Cinecittà studio, where some of the most famous films have been made by both national and international directors like Federico Fellini, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, William Wyler, and Wes Anderson.

In this course, students study London's history and culture through visits, tours, talks, walks, screenings, and events. The scope of the study is by period and locale with directed and self-directed study, so students are able to follow their own interests; history, politics, music, fashion, cinema, art, or literature. This is a summer course for those who want to learn about London by seeing and experiencing it. The teaching focuses research skills and practical skills in photography and writing through practice-based workshops in photography, journalism, and creative writing