Film & Media Studies

This course aims to interrogate core concepts in the humanities and social sciences through the lens of India’s most powerful film industry. Through an exploration of selected films, students will think critically and creatively about key cultural, social and political themes originating in the subcontinent. They will analyze important developments in India and the diaspora through the study of Bollywood cinema. The course will thus facilitate a nuanced understanding of the relationship between text and context, with a focus on Bollywood.

This course examines ideas of culture, ideology, and hegemony, discourse, media aesthetics, and digital convergence. Class discussions investigate the history of communications techniques, the implication of media in the workings of power in modern societies, the politics of media aesthetics, the role of audiences in shaping media, and the impact of digital technologies. Specific examples are introduced to clarify the main ideas, including the printing press, 19th-century visual entertainments, early and avant garde films, fan-fiction, and computer games.

This course explores a range of topics related to technologies of contemporary digital and social media, with particular attention to understanding technical, historical, ethical and legal issues. Students learn to express themselves effectively with digital media, and especially on the web. Topics include: digital media and communication; understanding SNS; the future of smart digital media; digital broadcasting; human computer interaction and trends of digital media.

From their very beginnings, cinema and then television have taken hold of French history. These productions for both the small and the big screen are the fruit of artistic and aesthetic choices, as well as the bearers of a certain historical perception. Sometimes taking a stand in debates about history and memory, they reflect the past as much as the context in which they were made. This course demonstrates how the history of France has been perceived in works of fiction broadcast on the big and small screens. It also looks at how these works contribute to social and memorial issues.

This course examines Spanish and Latin American film studies while exploring the tensions, negotiations, and complex flows of influence from a transatlantic angle. Comprising history, theory and criticism through the exploration of 'national' cinema industries, it explores sites of production and circulation, by examining the role co-productions and film festivals play in the conceptualization and consumption of Latin American and Spanish cinema.