Film & Media Studies

This special topics course includes the following topics: How filmmakers use their depictions of robots, androids, and AI to comment on contemporary science, society and culture; How developments in real-world science and technology have influenced cinema, and how the real science of AI has been influenced by science fiction; How to analyze and interpret science fiction films in terms of their themes and symbolism (what is the message of this movie?) and historical significance (why was this film important, and what events from history influenced its creation?) 

Students explore film analysis, terminology, and methodology through films, readings, group discussions, and debates. 

This course was designed for non-biology majors to show how biology is used to teach essential ideas, such as whether DNA is sufficient to create life; how life evolves; what cloning is, and how bionics could improve or impact our future life. Additionally, the class explores public misconceptions and naivete about science perpetuated by movies and the extent to which such films borrow from or, in some cases, even predict scientific facts.  

This course requires weekly screenings of a feature-length movie before the lectures in the classroom. Films and topics are organized around biological themes. 

This interdisciplinary seminar explores how literature and film grapple with the complexities of political power, authority, resistance, and representation. Drawing from a range of historical and geopolitical contexts, the course examines how writers and filmmakers narrate, aestheticize, and challenge systems of domination, the dynamics of oppression and liberation, and the moral ambiguities inherent in political engagement. Through lectures, screenings of film excerpts, class discussions, and written assignments, students acquire critical tools to analyze how cultural productions both reflect and shape political realities. The course features close readings of literary texts and critical analyses of landmark films, including CITIZEN KANE and CASABLANCA. It examines the theatrical staging of power in Shakespeare's HENRY V and its contrasting cinematic interpretations by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh; the construction of the Napoleonic and Lincolnian myths, from Abel Gance to Steven Spielberg; and the expression of American democratic idealism in Frank Capra's cinema. Further topics include the representation of atrocity and memory in works addressing the Holocaust, McCarthyism, the nuclear era, Watergate, the Vietnam War. Emphasis is placed on the aesthetics of authoritarianism and resistance, as well as on portrayals of the presidential figure in American and French cinema. The course interrogates the subdued complicity of the butler (Anthony Hopkins) in James Ivory's THE REMAINS OF THE DAY and explore the differences and similarities between Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS and its adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola in APOCALYPSE NOW. Throughout the semester, the course critically engages with propaganda, the narrative construction of ideology, the tension between personal conscience and collective responsibility, and the ways in which historical memory is shaped—or suppressed—by literary and cinematic forms.

This course examines the complex relationships between media and multiple varieties of communities, including national, local, ethnic, and subcultural groups. Through readings from multiple academic fields, the course addresses the media’s potential to change one’s understanding of cultures and how one relates to cultures they see as ‘other,’ as well complicating the divisions between the two. 　 
　 
The first half of the course discusses the role of nations and national cultures in the production, transmission, and consumption of media texts. Then, the course examines the complexities of community in the digital age, focusing on the spread of ideas across national and cultural borders through online participation. 

This course introduces the basic principles of game design, animation, and motion design. It covers fundamental game design concepts such as mechanics and loops, enabling participants to conceptualize and develop playable games. In addition to game design, the course introduces core motion principles, visual design for motion, storyboarding, sequential imagery, and graphic animation.

The course explores key theories that inform film and media studies and the discourses that define these disciplines. It offers an overview of theoretical approaches to moving images and visual cultures, interrogating theories of and through images alongside the politics of visibility, invisibility, and hypervisibility. The course covers topics such as third cinema, media spectacles, and video activism.

Film Music focuses on the seven core points to discuss, concept, characteristics, history, function, direction, aesthetics and critic on it of. The course aims to presenting the frontier knowledge, leading the method, supporting the possibilities about how to questioning and analysis as a film goer and an observer. Comprehensive dimensional scope involved and synchronization both theory and practice will be undertaken. The systematic analysis on film music, the categorization of film music, shown an important feature of the course.

This lecture course traces the history of cinema from its inception to the present day, while examining its characteristics as a “new yet old” medium. By comparing film with “older” media that existed before its birth and “newer” media that have emerged since, we will explore the evolving nature of cinema. The course also pays close attention to how advancements in media technology related to film have transformed the modes of exhibition and distribution. 

In the spring semester, the course focuses on the period from the dawn of silent cinema to the emergence of talkies and the eventual establishment of what is commonly known as “classical Hollywood cinema.” However, the course does not strictly adhere to chronological divisions; rather, it examines several key themes, exploring how they have been represented and how they have changed over time in cinematic history. 

This course examines history of modern Korea from the late nineteenth century to the early 2000s through Korean film by analyzing selected films as historical documents on Korean history, politics, society, and culture. The course explores themes such as the open port period, colonial Korea, liberation/occupation/national division, the Korean War, the post-war development in ROK, military authoritarianism, democratization, the Sunshine Policy, globalization, and multiculturalism. Students examine both the accuracy of each film’s representation of history and the counter narratives of some historical events. 

This course provides a historical survey of British cinema as well as an introduction to critical and theoretical debates associated with national cinema. Examine the relationship between British cinema and British culture, history, and national identity. Consider how British cinema has represented other dimensions of identity such as class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Analyze a range of films in order to explore how British cinema. Lastly, the course considers how specific genres such as the crime film and the period drama have functioned in the national and international marketplace.