Film & Media Studies

As a subject, film aesthetics includes two areas of study: film storytelling and film interpretation. Films and topics change, but these two subjects are fundamental. Both are discussed throughout the course. To explore the first subject, the course focuses on a sample of types of cinematic expression within the narrative tradition. Students study examples of canonical films in narrative filmmaking, from a wide range of periods and countries, films, about which many critics and historians have written. To explore the second subject, the course considers different ways in which these critics and historians have interpreted films. Students read exceptional film criticism and consider some of its underlying principles. By considering how critics have celebrated cinema in prose, students study films critically and historically. 

To what extent do stereotypes and prejudices affect the way we read and interpret news? How is wrong or inaccurate information conveyed, and how can we detect and contrast it? Is fake news a novelty of our time? This course examines the characteristics of the contemporary Italian media landscape in the light of some specific cultural traits of the country: attachment to family, distrust of institutional power, the influence (now in decline) of the Catholic Church, and the low propensity to read books and newspapers. The course analyzes historical moments where information, disinformation, and counter-information are closely intertwined, including the rumors after the fire of Rome under Nero; the anonymous epigrams of Pasquino and other "talking statues" in the 16th century as a reaction to papal censorship; the cause célèbre around a child, Edgardo Mortara, stolen in the mid-19th century from his Jewish family by the papal state; and will include moments from the last decades. The topics covered include the era of "Hollywood on the Tiber"; the media coverage of two cases between Italy and the US; the Islamophobia phenomenon; the long silence on the Italian colonial past finally broken thanks to Black Lives Matter protests; the controversies on vaccines; and the memes and the conspiracy theories related to the pandemic. Students research, discuss, and edit and produce texts, images, and audio and video materials on each topic within a simulated newsroom.

This course considers the unique aspects of Italian media and how it impacts and influences everything from cultural heritage to politics. Students explore Italy's eccentric media characters, from right-wing Matteo Salvini and chauvinistic Silvio Berlusconi to the tweeting, headline-making Pope, and consider how seriously Italians take what they get from the press. This course explores the historical development of Italian media from the "Acta Diurna" bulletins sent from the Roman Forum through phases of Fascism and national terrorism, all the way to the digital age. Students play documentarian by following the media treatment of an Italian news topic of their choice, ranging from culture, fashion, or food to gay rights, climate change, politics, or the economy, in order to fully understand how the media shapes public perception and vice versa. Topics include the media treatment of the Vatican, the Mafia, gender issues and sexism, fashion, food, cultural heritage, and the economy. Students also consider how Italy stacks up against media in the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of press freedom, transparency, and infotainment (the melding of news and entertainment).

This course provides conceptual and analytical tools for students to be able to systematize their experience as viewers and spectators of a range of visual representations across the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. Students are introduced to the broad field of Visual Culture in order to be able to engage critically with various forms of expression such as painting, printmaking, photography, and film (including genres such as portraiture, comics and documentary). It also considers the visual image within literary texts. Students examine selected samples from a range of visual and, where relevant, verbal material produced in relation to the Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds, as well as relevant theoretical and critical literature. Sessions focus on the ways in which images are part of the production of meaning and how vision and visuality might be culturally constructed. 

This course examines narratives in French-speaking films. It looks at the historical context of the emergence and evolution of cinema in formerly colonized French-speaking countries, and explains how this context reveals postcolonial practices that question geopolitical dominations, new radicalisms, globalized cultures and local traditional constraints. It also looks at the institutional context and the aesthetics of French-speaking cinema, as well as its thematic convergences with French-speaking literature.