Film & Media Studies

This course explores the role of music and sound in perhaps the dominant art form of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: film. From the live accompaniments of early silent movies to the Oscar-winning soundtracks of today's Hollywood productions, music has been an integral part of cinema from the outset, structuring narratives and shaping audience responses. This course introduces students to key aesthetic concepts and debates surrounding film music as well as providing a historical overview of the development of film sound. 

This course embraces documentary film to approach the history of Taiwan. Due to rapidly changing regimes of rule and a contentious geopolitical status, the people living on this island continue to grapple with multiple layers of coloniality, ways of healing from historical trauma, and expressions of identity. The development of documentary film-making in Taiwan is uniquely connected with the democratic movements against authoritarianism and the ethics of representing marginal voices and suppressed memories. Moreover, many directors have utilized cross-overs of film genre and the performing arts to illuminate certain “truths” unreachable through traditional documentary evidence.  

This course focuses on the ways that documentary (and fiction) filmmakers based in Taiwan use music, sound, and the performing arts as both subject and resource to shape narratives of Taiwan. In turn, the class focuses on Taiwanese documentary film to expand their understanding of the potentials and pitfalls of documentary film in the 21st century, especially through experiencing its creative uses of sounds and performances.

This course integrates theory with practice, balancing technical skills and creative thinking, and is anchored in a problem-finding and problem-solving approach. Instructional methods include lectures, case-based research and reflection, hands-on production workshops, and interactive discussions. Core topics cover podcast recording and production, short-form video shooting and editing, the evolution of online content amid technological change, and the application of emerging technologies in the audiovisual field.

This course examines popular media texts, genres, audiences and industries and reflects on how they influence our notions of self and society. It draws on case studies from a range of popular media, from film and television to comics, games, popular music, social media and advertising. 

This course considers the sensory qualities of cinema, a subject which engages variously with the film-as-object, film form and the spectator as active participant. The first half of the course draws on the main philosophical strands used by film scholars to conceptualize the affect of cinema, and then explores the ways film theory and criticism have sought to account for the sensuous or material nature of film. With these perspectives in mind, the second half considers the materialities of film form in more detail. The course explores the topic of filmic affect through a range of case studies and will draw on a diverse mix of references, including interviews with filmmaking personnel.

This course examines the creative and conceptual foundations of animation practice. It focuses on the basic elements of animated movement, allowing students to incorporate real-world physics into their own animated sequences. 

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.