COURSE OFFERINGS IN FILM STUDIES
Our course offerings grow evolve every year. Below is a list of courses that have been offered recently.
FLM 101 INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES: HOW TO READ FILM
An introduction to the concepts and methodology of film study as an academic discipline, to the development of film language and narrative conventions, connections between ideology and style, and categories of film form. Examples will be chosen from aesthetically and historically significant films. Required screening sessions.
FLM 202 STUDIES IN FILM CULTURE
Critical studies of the cultures of moving picture production and reception. Topics include celebrity and star studies, subculture and fan studies, the political economy of moving image production, theories of spectatorship, and the cultural consequences of various moving image technologies. Required screening sessions.
FLM 209 INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITIES IN AMERERICAN FILM
An examination of American film and moving image culture, tracing the representational politics and ideological issues that arise around notions of identity. Particular emphasis on how race, class, and ethnicity intersect in a diverse range of film and media forms.
FLM 211 JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY IN FILM, LITERATURE, AND TEXT
A course in comparative philosophy analyzing Japanese aesthetics, ethics, and social philosophy. Source materials include philosophical and literary texts, as well as Japanese films.
FLM 225 CONFUSION CINEMA: PUZZLE FILMS
Some films are easy to digest, while others are mind-boggling. The course examines the formal aesthetics of film through the lens of the puzzle film, closely exploring films that are narratively, structurally, and stylistically complex. Such films play with time, manipulate space, and twist storytelling in novel ways.
FLM 226 CINEMA AND REVOLUTION
An examination of how has cinema played a role in rebellion and revolution across the globe. Focusing on revolutionary and guerrilla Latin American and Black American filmmaking - including industries, aesthetics and audiences - the course explores political outsider cinemas that have worked to create radical change in the world.
FLM 229 VAMPIRES
From the early days of film, the figure of the vampire has expressed mainstream fears of "the other." Covering classics like Nosferatu, political Blaxploitation films, blockbusters and indies, the course explores how across time and culture the vampire embodies the dangers of race, gender and capitalism.
FLM 252 PHILOSOPHY AND FILM
A critical exploration of the way meaning occurs in filmic form. Emphasis on the aesthetic, ethical, and social significance and influence of films. Readings include philosophical and film-theoretical texts.
FLM 254 THE HOLOCAUST IN FILM AND LITERATURE
This course focuses on the globalization of Holocaust memory. Students examine a variety of representations from different countries and in different genres. We also probe underlying theoretical issues such as the relationship between history and memory, fact and fiction, trauma and writing/film making.
FLM 255 DEATH/DESIRE: HORROR IN GERMAN CINEMA
The films of Weimar Germany helped raise moving pictures to the status of a major form of modern art. This course considers the visual, thematic, and political characteristics of Weimar cinema, tracing their consequences into the present day.
FLM 256 GERMAN CULTURE THROUGH FILM
An examination of the history and culture of post-1900 Germany through film. Students will become acquainted with some of the most famous German films and situate them in their historical and cultural context. Films include Metropolis, Triumph of the Will, Run Lola Run, Downfall, The Lives of Others, and The Baader-Meinhof-Complex Rational.
FLM 258 TRANSNATIONAL WRITERS/FILMMAKERS
An exploration of the situation of migrants in Germany. Focusing on protagonists who have allegiances to multiple places, texts and films question the existence of fixed national identities and highlight instead the fluidity of national belonging. Authors and filmmakers include Akin, Ozdamar, Kermani, and Tawada.
FLM 259 GERMAN FILM NOW
An examination of major trends in contemporary German filmmaking since 2000, with emphasis on representations of identity, globalization, and post-9/11 surveillance. Films by German, Swiss, and Austrian directors in their historical and cultural context, including the Berlin School (Petzold, Hochhäusler, Ade) and directors in and on the margins of mainstream filmmaking.
FLM 288 THEORY OF FILM
A study of selected problems in the aesthetics of film: narration, montage, the illusion of space and time.
FLM 307 HISTORY OF RUSSIAN & SOVIET FILM
A survey of the radically innovative cinema of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Emphasis on theory and practice of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Tarkovsky and on the genres of science fiction, documentary, melodrama, autobiography, action, and war films. Films are in Russian with English subtitles.
FLM 311 REPRESENTING GENDER
An examination of the construction of gender in mainstream narrative film in the light of contemporary film theory and criticism. This course investigates representations of gender and the body by looking at what are commonly deemed "masculine genres" - horror and action films - and rethinking these films when violence and agency are enacted by female characters.
FLM 335 BLACK WOMEN IN PRINT & SCREEN
A study of cinematic and literary works featuring and/or created by African-American women, this course discusses the problems and possibilities entailed in representing black women in art. Topics include feminism, womanism, sexuality, class, and regionalism. Readings/screenings may include the films Bush Mama and Pariah and the novels Push and Passing.
FLM 357 SCREENING EAST ASIA
This course explores and analyzes key "Asian" films produced in international collaboration as a way of critically interrogating the categories of "national cinema" and "Asia." We will study key works by major directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-wai, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and Park Chan-wook.
FLM 360 RACE AND DOCUMENTARY FILM
This course looks at how documentary films representing race function as anthropological, imperialist, propagandist, and popular texts. Attention will be paid to questions of commodification and (self-)representation and to the responsibilities of filmmakers and spectators of film. Films may include Chronicle of a Summer, Through Navajo Eyes, and When the Levees Broke.
FLM 395B CHANGING THE IMAGE: BLACK CINEMA
An introduction to significant black American directors and an exploration of the aesthetic, thematic, and socio-political ways in which their work has changed the cinema.
FLM 395R REVENGE CINEMA
A survey of revenge films that are also concerned with the violence of racism and the need for reparation. Focusing on issues of film form, economic theories of indebtedness, critiques of neoliberalism, and psychoanalytic studies of reparation, the course considers what these films communicate about global struggles for repair.
FLM 395W FEMINISMS IN AMERICAN POP CULTURE
Critical exploration of popular film and television texts through the shifting terrain of contemporary feminist thought and representations. Academic feminist work will be combined with criticism in the popular press to uncover the interdependent relationships between the two in how they create feminisms' parameters and popular reception.
FLM 395Z SPECIAL TOPICS IN FILM STUDIES: ANIMATION
A serious, analytic approach to "cartoons," exploring the historical trajectory of the medium, the evolution of aesthetic practices, and the range of technologies utilized in early and contemporary animation. Topics will range from early studio animation and experimental work through contemporary computer animation and anime.
FLM 403 URBAN SPACE IN THE CINEMA
Focus on urban space as constructed on the screen and the interplay between architecture, sets, cultural memory, and film technologies. Study of films from the French cinematic tradition and examples from the American, Russian, and European cinemas.
FLM 409 GRAND/INTIMATE IN FRENCH CINEMA
Two French cinemas have long existed: one "big" cinema about the tumultuous political, cultural, and literary history of France, and one "small," personal cinema about a few characters and their lives. This course will examine what the differences in subject and scale mean for French film and culture.
FLM 416 FROM NEOREALISM TO THE PRESENT
Topics in Italian culture explored through cinema and literature. Films will be discussed in relation to the literary works that inspired them, or in tandem with pertinent literary, cultural, and theoretical materials. Films by Federico Fellini, Liliana Cavani, Pierpaolo Pasolini, Michalangelo Antonioni, Francesca Archibugi, and others. This selection may be supplemented with films by Italo-American directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. Italian majors and minors are required to read the literature in Italian.
FLM 420 AFROFUTURISM 2.0
A survey of film, music, art, and literature of Afrofuturism alongside scholarly work in the field. The course interrogates what Afrofuturism and how it can help us reconceptualize time, history, the future and black politics.
FLM 493C STUDIES IN CULT AND CAMP
An exploration of the aesthetics and politics of "cult and camp" film and television, examining through fan practices and theoretical writings the intersection of high theory with low cultural products. This course investigates "trash aesthetics," philosophical approaches to "camp," and the economic and institutional practices of low budget cult filmmaking.
FLM 493W AUTHORSHIP: WOMEN DIRECTORS
An exploration of "film authorship" on theoretical and meta-critical levels, focusing specifically on the way gender does (or does not) impact the production (and consumption) of female-authored texts. Combining close textual analysis of women-directed films with feminist criticism, the course examines a multiplicity of intersecting identities.