Film & Media Studies

This course examines gender studies within the field of media including how gender shapes representation, identity, and power through film, visual culture, and digital media. Topics include: gender as social construction, performance, and technology; representations of violence; the impact of new media, social networks, and AI on gender identities and narratives. 

This course focuses on critical analysis of media messages and impacts of various media including TV, music videos, newspapers, advertisements, websites, and social media on children and youth. It empowers the class to explore, understand, analyze and control the effects of mass and digital media on young people and oneself.

This course discusses the principles of sound and its role in media production. It focuses on how to capture, edit, and distribute audio using professional tools while exploring the language and creative power of sound. It examines the evolution of audio media from radio to digital platforms and the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on sound creation. 

This course explores the historical relationship between theater and film in contemporary Spain. It examines their evolution within the broader context of performance history as a way of transcending traditional divisions into genres and creative expressions.

This course explores the idea of the cultural industry and its economic, social, and ideological implications. It discusses the philosophical problems associated with mass culture, popular culture, cultural and creative industries, and mass media. Topics include: the film industry; the music industry; advertising; pop art; the value of language in cultural production; intellectual property; collective rights management.

The course considers the contribution made by ten films directed by women to feature film making. Do these films deal with female experience in a different way than their male-directed counterparts? Are their women characters always presented positively? How do they portray male characters and masculine settings? How do they represent (or not represent) sexual behavior and desire? How do they represent violence, poverty, and social restrictions? 

The course introduces students to British & Irish film and television through the study of a selection of examples and topics. These might cover specific periods, styles and traditions, themes, stars, filmmakers and television providers, among others. Through this approach, students are introduced to some of the ways in which British and Irish identities and cultures are represented and constructed on screen.

This course explores how games such as Ghost of Tsushima and Rise of the Rōnin have become one of the key vehicles through which people in Japan and across the world encounter the samurai and compares these depictions to historical realities. Students investigate how and why the samurai emerged as a distinct group, how they changed across Japan’s long history and the evolving and selective nature of samurai representations. As a final project, students collaborate to design their own samurai-themed video games.

This course traces the history of film from its birth to the present day, clarifying the characteristics of film as an "old yet new" medium by comparing it with the "old" media that existed before and the "new" media that have emerged since. It considers the changes that have occurred in the form of film exhibitions that have accompanied the development of film-related media technologies. 

This course introduces students to a broad range of theoretical and critical approaches to cinema, and teaches them how to apply these approaches to a variety of films. Students gain an understanding of classical film theory, including semiotics, auteur theory and psychoanalysis, as well as of contemporary developments such as audience studies, interest in issues of race and ethnicity, and in issues surrounding the advent of new cinematic technologies. Students also gain an appreciation of the historical and cultural contexts in which given theoretical approaches have emerged. These approaches are illustrated with reference to a range of Hollywood and European films.