Film & Media Studies

Crises such as the German Occupation, the Algerian War of Independence, and the strikes and riots of May 1968 sent shock waves through French society that sooner or later found their way into literature and film. This course examines how French writers and filmmakers responded to some of the major upheavals of mid- to late 20th century France. The course explores the following questions: How do writers and filmmakers seek to remember events that many would rather forget? What is the relationship between individual and collective memory? How might writing and film give expression to crises of personal and national identity? Previous experience of literary analysis is not required but is an advantage. All texts are studied in translation.

This course provides an introductory primer to the field of international law. It then navigates through a series of case studies exemplifying the subversion of legal conflicts by mass media, including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even climate change. Finally, it tests the limits of this approach by considering the involvement of social media as an emerging Fifth Estate.

This course introduces students to the discipline of Film Studies by focusing on the main theoretical and technical aspects of filmmaking. Through lectures, seminars, screenings, and excursions, students learn how to approach and discuss films analytically and acquire an awareness of the history and development of cinema and of the key concepts that can be used to discuss and write about films

Chinese Movie Review is a humanities elective course that is adapted to the concept of general education. The course covers the development of Chinese-language films (Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) for more than 100 years. Through the observation and discussion of classic movies, the course aims to enhances understanding of Chinese movies, the appreciation of movies, how to write film reviews. The course also introduces more classic Chinese films.

This course provides a study of Latin American films from the late nineteenth century to the present day and reflects on various political, social, and cultural scenarios of the countries in which these films are set. It critically analyzes the thematic and formal proposals of the films, as well as the aesthetic concepts used in the visual imagery associated with Latin America. The course examines the common problems and historical moments that were projected through film in silent cinema, new cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, and finally, in contemporary works.

This course introduces a series of contemporary motion pictures dealing with human rights issues, including documentaries about the Holocaust of World War II, short films about military slavery and wartime rape, and feature-length works about political refugees and asylum seekers. It frames human rights cinema as a discursive category of filmmaking, one whose roots stretch back to “social problem films” of the 1920s-1930s and which increasingly relies on organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for financing and distribution. The course examines the historical contexts that not only gave rise to human rights violations but also made possible the production of independent and studio-backed films that seek to remedy social problems of the past and present. In addition to examining the political backdrops against which several historically important films emerged, students gain proficiency in analyzing those films’ aesthetic and formal traits while becoming more sensitively aligned with the struggles and sufferings of people around the world.

This course provides a study of the historical origins of film production and its evolution in contemporary society. It discusses theoretical concepts, legal framework and legislation, financing and budget, stages of audiovisual production and the production team.

In this studio course, students learn how to create visual narratives in sequential form. The emphasis is on visual narrative construction for the picture book, with some contextual history of the genre. Production aspects include analog and design techniques, continuity, and image and text relationships.

This course teaches a technical mastery of photography, the journalistic narrative through images, and the critical reading of photojournalism published in the press. It studies fundamental technical concepts (focal lengths, diaphragm, speed, sensitivity), the narrative structure of a photojournalistic story, the deontological discussion of the photo taking, the critical reading of image making, and the basics of digital image processing. The course provides the skills to create, develop, and tell critical journalistic stories using photography as a means of expression.

This course approaches historical and contemporary exoticism in European culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. It examines imaginations of the foreign in literature, from antiquity to the present; the visual arts; as well as various media such as film, opera, and architecture. The course also considers historical foci, such as the connection between exoticism and colonialism or exoticism and racism. In addition to approaches from art history, aesthetics, literary studies, film studies, media studies, and cultural studies, the course discusses methods from postcolonial studies, critical race studies, and intercultural studies in order to gain a theoretically trained view of imaginations of the non-European “Other” in art and culture. Course readings include excerpts and full texts from different periods by Western European and Northern American authors: Euripides, THE BACCHAE; Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, PAUL AND VIRGINIA; Thomas De Quincey, CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER; Edgar Allen Poe, LIGEIA; Thomas Mann, DEATH IN VENICE; Karen Blixen, THE SUPPER AT ELSINORE; David Henry Hwang, M. BUTTERFLY. It also analyses paintings by Henri Rousseau, Paul Gauguin, and James Tissot, and studies operas by Mozart and Puccini.