Film & Media Studies

This course focuses on the afterlife of a selection of controversial tragedies, which shocked their original audiences in Elizabethan and Jacobean London as much as they continue to challenge and entertain us today, both on the contemporary stage and on screen. The course focuses equally on the original context within which these tragedies were first written and performed, and on the history of their reception, with special emphasis on cinematic adaptations spanning over the late 20th and the early 21st centuries. 

This course provides a study of the major movements, schools, genres, styles, writers and works in the history of cinema. It takes an in-depth look at the meaning of the language of cinema and how it relates to the humanities.

This course examines the intersection of music, AI, and creativity, drawing from the rapidly expanding critical scholarship on AI. While the class prioritizes musicological, sociocultural, and philosophical approaches to critiquing AI, it will also engage with other genres of writings from media studies, music information retrieval (MIR), computational creativity, and from within the music industry. 

From sparkly vampires to blockbuster monsters, gothic tropes appear to be all-pervasive in contemporary culture. As Catherine Spooner claims in CONTEMPORARY GOTHIC (2006), like "a malevolent virus, Gothic narratives have escaped the confines of literature and spread across disciplinary boundaries to infect all kinds of media, from fashion and advertising to the way contemporary events are constructed in mass culture." This course introduces students to Gothic’s literary expression in the British 19th century, before exploring the many ways in which this dark heritage continues to affect contemporary cultural production. Focusing on three key texts from the 19th century, FRANKENSTEIN (1818), THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE (1886), and DRACULA (1897), this course discusses their adaptation, appropriation, and influence on popular narratives such as those found in fiction, film, tv, fashion, and music video. 

This course introduces long-format non-fiction storytelling and delves into the theoretical and practical realms of documentary filmmaking. It looks into the main elements of documentaries and explores the whole process of documentary filmmaking. The course focuses on the different genres and different techniques of documentary films as an important information base for students to produce their own films. It examines the wide array of documentaries covering political, cultural, historical, social, environmental topics, and more. The variety of genres and various techniques provide a wide base of documentary film experiences; this along with the encouragement of individual creativity is the backbone of the student's project throughout the semester.

This course offers a study of video art design and creation and the field of experimental cinema. It explores techniques and technologies of digital video and audio, as well as methods of audiovisual production. Students work in a group to develop an audiovisual project that incorporates video art techniques and formats. 

This course examines the deep connection between film and architecture. Both are art forms that shape and articulate our experience of space and place, influencing how we perceive and interact with the built environment. Through themes of space, place, and time, students will explore cinematic perspectives and methodologies for spatial analysis and design. By analyzing and making short films, students will also explore opportunities and strategies for storytelling, documentation, research and critique of the built environment. 

This course focuses on commercial films while also considering television dramas, web dramas, and short videos as narrative art forms. It offers both theoretical and practical teaching on the work of directors in narrative audiovisual arts. The course integrates teaching philosophies and approaches from world-renowned film schools, combined with Peking University's strong humanistic foundation and comprehensive academic strengths, forming a teaching mechanism that emphasizes both theory and practice. The course primarily consists of classroom lectures and practical guidance. Under the guidance of professional instructors, students will quickly grasp director theory and techniques. Industry elites are incorporated into the curriculum, with many top domestic and international screenwriters invited to teach. Following the teaching approach of "foundation" + "practice" + "innovation," students will acquire basic knowledge, be able to apply these skills to create and direct film segments, and be encouraged to think independently, learning to use audiovisuals to tell stories, express emotions, and convey ideas.

This course examines stars, celebrities, and fandom practices, as they are found in the media and popular culture (film, television, pop music, advertising, branding, news and magazines, the Internet and society media). Stars and celebrities also arise from beyond the mediasphere, with the possibility to consider literary stars, famous artists, royalties, and personalities from the fields of politics and sports. Academic approaches to fan cultures also critically engage with subcultural groups and participatory practices.

This course fulfils the dual function of introducing students to various canonical French texts and films and of introducing students to the study of narrative poetics, or "narratology" an important mode of literary analysis which was largely developed in France. Beginning with a comparative analysis of the narrative techniques of a 19th-century short story by Guy de Maupassant and its film adaptation by the great director Jean Renoir, the course then turns to the medieval and early modern versions of the popular tale LA CHESTELAINE DE VERGI. Afterward, students read the crucial 18th-century novel MANON LESCAUT, the source for Puccini's opera of the same name; they shall then turn to Emile Zola's 19th-century novel THÉRÈSE RAQUIN, studying both this text and its film adaptation. Finally, students examine a contemporary text remarkable for its narrative technique: Annie Ernaux's LA PLACE.