Cinema Studies
Overview and Learning Goals
The Cinema Studies Program introduces students to the history, form, and analysis of motion pictures through an interdisciplinary approach. It explores how cinema, as an art form and cultural product, reflects the vision of filmmakers and influences our understanding of historical and lived realities. A key goal of the program is to teach the critical analysis of images in an increasingly image-driven society. Upon completing the minor, students should be able to:
- demonstrate mastery of basic conceptual and visual vocabulary used in the study of film, in particular the ability to analyze film in terms of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound, and narrative structure;
- analyze the formal components of cinema within aesthetic, historical, sociocultural, political, and international contexts, as well as in light of theoretical frameworks related to gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, and/or global interactions;
- demonstrate knowledge of the history of national and international cinemas, as well as major filmmakers and different genres;
- describe the relation of film to other art forms such as literature, theater, music, and dance; and
- demonstrate an understanding of how different aspects of the film experience—from preproduction and production through distribution, marketing, exhibition, and reception—engage in processes of making meaning.
Options for Minoring in the Program
Students may elect to minor in cinema studies. Bowdoin does not offer a major in cinema studies.
Tricia Welsch, Program Director
Laurie Holland, Program Coordinator
Professors: Aviva Briefel (English), Shu-chin Tsui (Asian Studies), Tricia Welsch
Associate Professor: Allison A. Cooper (Romance Languages and Literatures)
Contributing Faculty: Meryem Belkaïd, Elena Cueto Asín, Aruna Kharod, Ann L. Kibbie, Aaron Kitch, William Lempert, Elizabeth Muther, Michael Oshindoro, Patrick Rael, Marilyn Reizbaum, Vineet Shende‡, Jill Smith, Birgit Tautz*, Anthony Walton*
Cinema Studies Minor
The cinema studies minor consists of five courses.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| CINE 1101 | Film Narrative | 1 |
| Select one of the following: | 1 | |
| History of Film 1895 to 1935 | ||
| Film History 1935 to 1975 | ||
| Select one 3000-level seminar in cinema studies that must be taken at Bowdoin. | 1 | |
| Select one cinema studies course that incorporates theory. | 1 | |
| Select one cinema studies course in non-US cinema. | 1 | |
Additional Information and Program Policies
- Students minoring in cinema studies are required to complete a total of five courses with a grade of C- or better. Courses taken Credit/D/Fail do not count toward the minor.
- Students may count one class for more than one requirement, such as a 3000-level course with a theory component. Students may also take both CINE 2201 History of Film 1895 to 1935 and CINE 2202 Film History 1935 to 1975 for credit toward the minor. All students successfully completing the minor will still complete five classes.
- No more than two courses below the 2000 level, including first-year writing seminars, count toward the minor.
- No more than one independent study, at the intermediate or advanced level, may count toward the minor.
- Normally, one course taken at another college or university may be applied to the minor at the introductory or 2000 level upon approval by the program director and faculty.
- Minors may double-count one course with another department or program.
Information for Incoming Students
Film has emerged as one of the most important art forms of the modern era. Cinema Studies at Bowdoin introduces students to the techniques, history, and literature of film to cultivate an understanding of both the vision and craft of film artists and the views of society and culture expressed in cinema. The Cinema Studies minor consists of five courses. First-year students interested in Cinema Studies are welcome in any course that does not have a prerequisite. Students can also contact the instructor to ask about joining any of our courses.
Explores, by focusing on a selection of films made in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s, the development of what will become known as film noir. Considers some of the hard-boiled detective films most famously associated with this category, as well as lesser-known films in which the dangerous forces of noir (evil, violence, and corruption) threaten to destroy the post-World War II fantasy of the American family. Films may include Murder, My Sweet; Out of the Past; Double Indemnity; Gun Crazy; In a Lonely Place; The Reckless Moment; and Panic in the Streets. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 1004)
Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Animation is a dominant cultural force in Japan and perhaps its most important cultural export. Examines the ways Japanese animation represents Japan's history and society and the diverse ways in which it is consumed abroad. How does animation showcase Japanese views of childhood, sexuality, national identity, and gender roles? How does its mode of story-telling build upon traditional pictorial forms in Japan? Focuses on the aesthetic, thematic, social, and historical characteristics of Japanese animation films; provides a broad survey of the place of animation in twentieth-century Japan. Films include “Grave of Fireflies,” “Spirited Away,” “Ghost in the Shell,” “Akira,” and “Princess Kaguya.” This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 1020)
Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Considers gangster films in depth, exploring how popular narrative film manages the threat posed by the criminal's racial, ethnic, or gender difference. Examines shifts in the genre's popularity and assesses the implications of considering genre entertainment art. Weekly writing, extensive reading, and mandatory attendance at evening film screenings.
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester
Explores the myriad ways that prostitutes have been represented in modern Western culture from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. By analyzing literary texts, visual artworks, and films from Europe and the United States, examines prostitution as a complex urban phenomenon and a vehicle through which artists and writers grapple with issues of labor, morality, sexuality, and gender roles. Introduces students to a variety of literary, artistic, musical, and filmic genres, as well as to different disciplinary approaches to the study of prostitution. Authors, artists, and film directors may include Baudelaire, Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirchner, Wedekind, Pabst, Marshall, Scorsese, Spielmann, and Sting. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GER 1027, GSWS 1027)
Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester
An introduction to a variety of methods used to study motion pictures, with consideration given to films from different countries and time periods. Examines techniques and strategies used to construct films, including mise-en-scène, editing, sound, and the orchestration of film techniques in larger formal systems. Surveys some of the contextual factors shaping individual films and our experiences of them (including mode of production, genre, authorship, and ideology). Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Explores the topic of adaptation, specifically, the ways in which cinematic texts transform literary narratives into visual forms. Begins with the premise that every adaptation is an interpretation, a rewriting/rethinking of an original text that offers an analysis of that text. Central to class discussions is close attention to the differences and similarities in the ways in which written and visual texts approach narratives, the means through which each medium constructs and positions its audience, and the types of critical discourses that emerge around literature and film. May include works by Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Anita Loos, Vladimir Nabokov, and Ridley Scott. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 1104)
Considers some of Shakespeare’s major plays in conjunction with their cinematic representation. How does film as a medium transform Shakespearean drama? What aesthetic decisions shape the translation into film? How does the technology of moving images help to redefine Shakespeare for a modern age? Topics include film form, historical and political context of both staged and screened productions, and the role that Shakespeare's works played in the development of the American film industry. Plays include “Romeo and Juliet,” “Titus Andronicus,” “Richard III,” “Henry IV,” “Henry V,” “Hamlet,” “Twelfth Night,” “King Lear,” and “The Tempest.” Films include the work of Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Trevor Nunn, Baz Luhrmann, and Julie Taymor. Students are discouraged from enrolling in this course concurrently with English 1003 (Shakespeare’s Afterlives). This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 1115)
What does it mean when we say that we live in the age of media? First, we will examine some of the classical theoretical texts that define the study of media and look at new forms of modern mass media that emerged in the twentieth century, such as radio and television. Later, we will look more closely at our contemporary world of computerized media and information technology, including software and social media. Throughout the course, we will examine the factors that influence media as well as the ways in which media influences society and individuals. Texts include films by Jordan Peele, Ryan Coogler, Allan J. Pakula, Sidney Lumet, and Billy Wilder, students’ students’ own social media practices, and theoretical texts by Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, and Alexander R. Galloway. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 1118)
Acting for the Camera introduces students to the intellectual, vocal, physical and emotional challenge of the acting process, distilled for on-camera work. Students will learn and practice exercises examining human behavior within the camera's frame and moment-to-moment storytelling. They will create on-screen acting projects, then analyze their own and peers' work while also studying celebrated professionals' work within the art of acting on camera. Students will also learn the language of the screenplay and how to analyze it for acting clues, learning, developing and deploying new techniques that help translate that analysis into embodied performance. This course originates in Theater and Dance and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: THTR 1151)
An examination of literary, artistic, and cinematic representations of the city of Berlin during three distinct time periods: the “Roaring 20s,” the Cold War, and the post-Wall period. Explores the dramatic cultural, political, and physical transformations that Berlin underwent during the twentieth century and thereby illustrates the central role that Berlin played, and continues to play, in European history and culture, as well as in the American cultural imagination. For each time period studied, compares Anglo-American representations of Berlin with those produced by German artists and writers, and investigates how, why, and to what extent Berlin has retained its status as one of the most quintessentially modern cities in the world. No knowledge of German is required. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Urban Studies. (Same as: GER 1152, URBS 1152)
Terms offered: 2025 Fall Semester
From silent films (which were always accompanied with music and were therefore never really “Silent”) to today’s computer enhanced blockbusters, music has always been an integral part of cinema, allowing for suspension of disbelief, establishing mood and emotion, and cogenerating narrative. Through lectures and film viewings, discussion sections, small group projects, and readings (hyperlinked to movie clips), students in this course will gain the ability to critically analyze the musical language of cinema and understand how its related aesthetics, technology, and economics have changed over the last 100 years. Films studied will include works scored by Desplat, Herrmann, Junkie XL, Korngold, Ligeti, Public Enemy, Raskin, Simon, Tamar-Kali, Vangelis, and Williams. This course originates in Music and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: MUS 1261)
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester
A course in beginning video production with an emphasis on the expressive potentials of the recording, editing, and sequencing of sound and the moving image. Studio projects are supported by technical demonstrations, readings, viewings, group discussions, and critiques. By approaching video and sound through multiple formats, students will develop a facility with a range of digital imaging and editing tools along with the basics of lighting and audio recording. Students will be encouraged to challenge conventional ways of conveying information and seek new ways to communicate ideas and tell stories. This course originates in Visual Arts and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: VART 1702)
Terms offered: 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Examines how China’s economic development has caused massive destruction to the natural world and how environmental degradation affects the lives of ordinary people. An ecological and environmental catastrophe unfolds through the camera lens in feature films and documentaries. Central topics include the interactions between urbanization and migration, humans and animals, eco-aesthetics and manufactured landscapes, local communities and globalization. Considers how cinema, as mass media and visual medium, provides ecocritical perspectives that influence ways of seeing the built environment. The connections between cinema and environmental studies enable students to explore across disciplinary as well as national boundaries. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement and the film theory requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Environmental Studies. (Same as: ASNS 2075, ENVS 2475)
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
How has Hollywood treated Asia and Asians? To what extent have Hollywood film productions engaged in either erotic fascination or racial prejudice, when presenting Asia as a cinematic setting and Asians as a cultural other? Examining Hollywood’s imaginative visions of the east, the course takes students on an exploratory journey from classic Hollywood films to contemporary blockbusters. Issues may include race and stardom in 'Shanghai Express', yellowface in 'Good Earth', the exotic Asian female in 'The World of Suzie Wong', stereotypes of Tibetans in 'Seven Years in Tibet', and an American’s perception of Tokyo in ' Lost in Translation'. We will also explore the Orientalist imagination through sexualized Geisha or masculinized Mulan as well as transnational crossings in the animated film 'Kungfu Panda'. In addition to analyzing themes and the social-cultural implications of films, the course also introduces students to the cinematic language: mise-en-scene, cinematography, and editing. Counts toward the major in Asian studies and the minor in cinema studies. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 2900)
Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2024 Spring Semester
The onset of COVID-19 has led to anxiety and fear in our daily lives. The spread of this infectious disease and its destructive power prompts us to look to the film screen for ways we might comprehend the urgent subject confronting us. In considering how cinema has treated pandemics, the course will exam a number of thematic categories through cinematic articulations. The topics include but are not limited to: pandemics in history, the politics of pandemics, the fantasy or horror of pandemics, pandemics in Asia, and pandemics and animals. A carefully chosen roster of films include: The Seventh Seal, Outbreak and Contagion, The Flu that Killed 50 Million, Casandra Crossing, the South Korean productions of Flu and The Train to Busan, as well as 28 Days Later and Twelve Monkeys. The course meets the requirement for a major or minor in Asian studies, as well as the minor in cinema studies. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 2078)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
Asian Americans have often been portrayed as the stereotyped other by both American cinema and mainstream media. This course presents an alternative vision and a counter-cinema: films directed by Asian American filmmakers, about Asian American experiences, and from Asian American perspectives. Themes and genres addressed include the family melodrama, the coming-of-age story, transnational migration, diasporic border-crossing, processes of racialization, and gender and sexual politics. We will explore how Asian American films recast images of Asian Americans through first-person narratives, how racial difference is reclaimed from white-centric imaginations, and how Asian American cinema as a communal practice negotiates sociocultural and institutional hegemonies. At the heart of the course is the building of an Asian American spectatorship whereby Asian Americans can view themselves on their own terms. This course is part of the college-wide Asian American initiative in 2023-2024. This course fulfills the non-US cinema and the film theory requirements for Cinema Studies minors This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 2081)
Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester
This course will survey the history of modern Central America, from the Nicaraguan revolution and the Salvadoran and Guatemalan armed conflicts, through film. In addition, this class will examine broader region-wide experiences such as the ownership of the Panama Canal and the assassination of key figures in Central America including Berta Cáceres in Honduras. Mainly through a variety of film genres, including historical drama, adaptations, and documentaries, this course will analyze the role of the United States in Central America, including the long history of military occupation in Nicaragua, the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954, and the financial aid provided to El Salvador and Guatemala during their civil wars. Finally, this course will explore the legacy of the violence from the twentieth century in the present. As a result, this class will address key topics such as transitional justice, migration, gangs, drug trafficking and organized crime, gender relationships, and neopopulism. This course originates in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: LACL 2352)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
Examines the translation of science into stories and digital media that successfully engage public attention. What enables ordinary citizens to form an understanding consistent with the best available scientific evidence? What gets in the way of forming such an understanding? What communication strategies and formats successfully move science to civic society? Case studies include translation of the following areas of climate change science: synthetic biology and algae as biofuel, ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and super storms. Class reading and writing assignments and seminar discussions lead to development of group presentations and production of digital media. This course originates in Cinema Studies and is crosslisted with: Environmental Studies; Visual Arts. (Same as: ENVS 2463, VART 2120)
How does the figure of the teen mobilize different ideologies of gender, sexuality, and queerness in various genres of film? How do contemporary sociocultural circumstances affect the creation, reception, and interpretation of teen films produced throughout the decades? In this course, students will examine how different films frame, approach, and at times misrepresent adolescent experience. Students will explore how understandings of adolescence, gender, and sexuality have shifted over the decades, how teen sexuality is visually aestheticized, and how representations of gender and teen sexuality are inflected by other domains of identity such as race and class. In addition to learning how to “close read” these films, taking notions such as editing, sound, form, and style into consideration, students will explore and apply queer and feminist frameworks to unlock innovative and politically viable ways of critiquing these so-called vapid and uncritical cultural productions. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is mandatory. This course originates in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GSWS 2320)
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester
Examines the development of film from its origins to the American studio era. Includes early work by the Lumières, Méliès, and Porter, and continues with Griffith, Murnau, Eisenstein, Chaplin, Keaton, Stroheim, Pudovkin, Lang, Renoir, and von Sternberg. Special attention is paid to the practical and theoretical concerns over the coming of sound. No previous experience with film studies is required. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
A consideration of the diverse production contexts and political circumstances influencing cinema history in the sound era. National film movements to be studied include Neorealism, the French New Wave, and the New German Cinema, as well as the coming of age of Asian and Australian film. Also explores the shift away from studio production in the United States, the major regulatory systems, and the changes in popular film genres. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester
Focuses on developments in filmmaking over the last fifty years, including international trends in the uses of film as a storytelling medium and in the global film market. Examines the rise of New Hollywood and the Movie Brats in the 1970s amid the decline of the big studios, as well as the emergence of alternatives to classical Hollywood filmmaking in Europe, Russia, Africa, and Asia and the Pacific Rim. Considers the responses of twenty-first-century filmmakers to the terrorism, financial disaster, immigration crises, and uncertain political leadership of recent decades. Examines modern technologies that have affected how films are made and consumed, from videocassettes in the 1980s to contemporary streaming services. Explores intense disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic for filmmaking and across national cinemas. Attendance at weekly evening film screenings required. Fulfills the film history requirement for Cinema Studies minors.
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester
Explores American culture and history by looking at studio- and independently-produced films. Topics include sex and race relations, ethnicity and the American Dream, work and money and their role in self-definition, war and nostalgia, and celebrity and the role of Hollywood in the national imagination. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2024 Fall Semester
Considers the films of Alfred Hitchcock from his career in British silent cinema to the Hollywood productions of the 1970s. Examines his working methods and style of visual composition, as well as consistent themes and characterizations. Of particular interest is his adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” as a way of exploring the tensions between literary sources and film, and between British and American production contexts. Ends with a brief look at Hitchcock’s television career and his influence on recent film. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester
Surveys the first hundred years of British cinema from the silent period to contemporary films. Topics covered: invention of cinema and patterns of movie-going in the United Kingdom; work of important directors and producers (Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed, Alexander Korda); changes brought by World War II; the Angry Young Men of the 50s and 60s; and recent developments (heritage films, postcolonial perspectives, Scottish film). Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for Cinema Studies minors. Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for Cinema Studies minors
Terms offered: 2025 Spring Semester
Examines China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) through the lens of cinema. Viewed as one of the most destructive mass movements in China’s modern history, the CR dramatically shaped national politics and deeply affected the life of ordinary people. With film productions made during and after the CR as primary materials, the course seeks to explain the nature of the Cultural Revolution as well as how motion pictures (re)construct CR rhetoric and why the CR remains a source of trauma that haunts the memories of those who experienced it. Popular film titles such as 'The White Haired Girl', 'To Live', 'Farewell My Concubine', and others will lead students on a journey through history via the cinemas of socialist model operas, post-socialist retrospections, and alternative re-constructions. The course aims to be intellectually thought-provoking and cinematically engaging. It fulfills the minor in Cinema Studies and Chinese as well as the major in Asian Studies. Neither a prerequisite nor knowledge of the Chinese language is required. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 2072)
How do we spend money, and why? Examines the relationship between gender and consumer culture over the course of the twentieth century. Explores women’s and men’s relationships to consumer culture in a variety of contexts: the heterosexual household, the bachelor pad, the gay-friendly urban cafeteria, the advertising agency, and the department store. Also explores the ways in which Hollywood films, from the 1930s to the present, have both furthered and complicated gendered notions about the consumption of goods. This course originates in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GSWS 2261)
Examines a diverse range of nonfiction media from past to present. Films will be read as both discrete works of cinema and as socio-political objects. In addition to surveying milestones from the global documentary tradition and emergent digital practices, this course also explores works that use nonfiction footage in ways distinct from popular modes of documentary, such as city symphonies and found footage films, as well as more prosaic nonfiction modes such as newsreels, propaganda, and science films. The course pursues several related modes of inquiry: What aesthetic techniques have filmmakers employed to represent reality? How have filmmakers and scholars theorized documentary practice and ethics? And how has nonfiction filmmaking been conceived of as ideologically “useful”? This is accomplished through close readings of film and written texts, in-class discussion, written responses, and longer analytical papers. Fulfills the film theory requirement for cinema studies minors. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester
Approaches the subject of women and writing in twentieth- and early twenty-first-century China from perspectives of gender studies, literary analysis, and visual representations. Considers women writers, filmmakers, and their works in the context of China’s social-political history, as well as its literary and visual traditions. Focuses on how women writers and directors negotiate gender identity against social-cultural norms. Also constructs a dialogue between Chinese women’s works and Western feminist assumptions. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: ASNS 2073, GSWS 2267)
Concentrating in large part on the classical Hollywood period, we will explore films that center on women's experiences and that are (or seem to be) intended for a female audience. We will examine the genres of melodrama, film noir, gothic, and comedy in relation to the performance of female identity; representations of gender, class, race, and sexuality; and theories of spectatorial identification. The last part of the class will consider ways in which contemporary women’s films draw on and reconfigure the themes brought up by earlier narratives. Directors might include Arzner, Cukor, Haynes, Hitchcock, Mankiewicz, Varda, and Vidor. This course originates in Cinema Studies and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GSWS 2273)
Hollywood has become synonymous with the blockbuster, a category defined by big expectations — big budgets, big special effects, big stars, big marketing campaigns, and big controversies. This course examines this ubiquitous mode of film production by approaching it as a formal style, industrial strategy, mode of production, and cultural phenomenon. The course explores cinema’s history as spectacle and topics including narrative conventions, special effects, franchises, transmedia storytelling, and fandom. Films will be read alongside media paratexts (such as trailers and merchandising) that position these products in the marketplace. The course also addresses how blockbusters have become visible sites for efforts to reform Hollywood culture in response to demands for racial, gender, and pay equity. In this multivalent approach, this course explores the conditions that inform the past, present, and potential futures of American commercial filmmaking on a global scale.
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
This course explores U.S. film history by surveying the contributions of women directors, actresses, and behind-the-scenes workers from the silent era to the 1990s. The course investigates a range of questions: What types of work have women performed? How have political, cultural, and industrial factors shaped opportunities available to women? How have women produced and experienced racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities on screen and in the workplace? How has difference affected opportunities available to women and the stories that get to be told? Are there distinctive stylistic or narrative preoccupations that characterize made by women? What does it mean to practice feminist filmmaking, criticism, and history? How might highlighting the experiences of women in the film world empower us to rewrite dominant film histories? To address these questions, the course surveys a range of feature films, documentaries, and experimental works created by both the renowned and the unsung. This course originates in Cinema Studies and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GSWS 2272)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
With a focus on contemporary films directed by women working in diverse national, regional, and industrial contexts, this course considers questions that exist at the intersection of women-centered storytelling, gendered authorship, and feminist aesthetics. What types of narratives, perspectives, and visual styles have contemporary women filmmakers brought to the screen? How have recent political, cultural, social, and industrial factors shaped works produced by women? What types of counter-cinematic techniques have women directors deployed to critique repressive ideologies? How have modes of difference among women informed self-representation? What roles do funding agencies, global film festivals, awards, curators, and specialty distributors serve in gatekeeping definitions of women’s cinema? What influence do women filmmakers have on contemporary cinephile culture and as political activists? Students will complete a final independent research project. Weekly evening film screenings required. This course originates in Cinema Studies and is crosslisted with: Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. (Same as: GSWS 2330)
Terms offered: 2025 Spring Semester
Examines the genre of the horror film in a range of cultural, theoretical, and literary contexts. Considers the ways in which horror films represent violence, fear, and paranoia; their creation of identity categories; their intersection with contemporary politics; and their participation in such major literary and cinematic genres as the gothic, comedy, and family drama. Texts may include works by Craven, Cronenberg, De Palma, Freud, Hitchcock, Kristeva, Kubrick, Poe, Romero, and Shelley. Note: Fulfills the film theory requirement for Cinema Studies minors. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: ENGL 2426, GSWS 2426)
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester
A survey of some of the major currents in film theory from the early days of motion pictures to the present, including formalism, genre theory, auteur theory, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. Includes mandatory evening film screenings; a choice of two screening times available for each film. Note: Fulfills the film theory requirement for cinema studies minors.. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 2428)
Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2024 Spring Semester
The celebrated German film director Fatih Akin has stated, 'Film is a two dimensional thing—it goes up and down and left to right but if you put music into that two dimensional medium, it acquires a third, fourth, and fifth dimension.' This course will explore the myriad ways that music creates deeper meaning in film. This will be accomplished through both analysis of preexisting films scores and composing original music for five common filmic categories: establishing sequences, montage sequences, dialogue underscoring, and action and love scenes. Students will need to be able to read music notation. This course originates in Music and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: MUS 2502)
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester
An introduction to Italian cinema with an emphasis on Neorealism and its relationship to other genres, including Comedy Italian Style, the Spaghetti Western, the horror film, the 'mondo' (shock documentary), and mafia movies, among others. Readings and discussions situate films within their social and historical contexts, and explore contemporary critical debates about the place of radical politics in Italian cinema (a hallmark of Neorealism), the division between art films and popular cinema, and the relevance of the concept of an Italian national cinema in an increasingly globalized world. No prerequisite required. Taught in English (films screened in Italian with English subtitles). Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ITAL 2553)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
This course introduces students to written and visual modes of storytelling in Africa, with emphasis on a variety of literary texts and films. Students engage novels, plays, and films from diverse geographical regions on the continent and analyze topics and themes to gain a critical understanding of the most important issues for African writers, filmmakers, and artists across genres and generations. This course fulfills the International Perspectives distribution requirement by introducing students to themes and topics from different cultural, national, historical contexts in Africa. It also fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement by equipping students with analytical skills to creatively explore their curiosities in critical aspects of African storytelling. This course originates in Africana Studies and is crosslisted with: English; Cinema Studies. (Same as: AFRS 2230, ENGL 2230)
Terms offered: 2025 Fall Semester
Since Lenin declared cinema the most important art, Russian film often walks in the shadows of political change. Despite or because of this tension, Russian directors have created some of the finest cinema in the world. l Investigates Russia’s innovations in film technique and ideological questions that result from rewriting history or representing Soviet reality in film; attention to film construction balanced with trends in Russia’s cinematic tradition. Directors studied include Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, and Vertov. Topics covered include film genre (documentary, comedy, western) and gender and sexuality in a changing sociopolitical landscape. All course content in English. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: REEES 2222)
Newly freed from censorship, Russian filmmakers in the quarter-century between 1990 and 2015 created compelling portraits of a society in transition. Their films reassess traumatic periods in Soviet history; grapple with formerly taboo social problems such as alcoholism, anti-Semitism, and sexual violence; explore the breakdown of the Soviet system; and critique the darker aspects of today’s Russia, often through the lens of gender or sexuality—specifically addressing subjects such as machismo, absent fathers, rape, cross-dressing, and birthing. Central are the rapid evolution of post-Soviet Russian society, the emergence of new types of social differences and disparities and the reinvention of old ones, and the changing nature of social roles within the post-Soviet social fabric. Taught in English. This course originates in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GSWS 2410, REEES 2410)
Examines the subject of collective memory and reconstructions of the past in post-socialist Eastern European cinema, focusing primarily on Russian-language films. How does this area of the world, with its fraught histories of wars, revolutions and other social upheavals, describe or inscribe the past in recent films, from the historical blockbuster to more intimate contemporary narratives haunted by past events? And how do these films about the darkest episodes of the region’s history shed light on the ways in which we either commemorate or repress historical traumas in our own culture(s) today? Scholarship on nostalgia, cultural taboos, repressed memory, reconciliation, and collective memory will help us to form a complex understanding of how filmmakers not only represent the past in their work, but also recreate it anew on the screen in order to fit the needs of the current moment. This course originates in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: REEES 2413)
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Examines the presentation and reception of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds in cinema. Considers how filmmakers interpret ancient Greece and Rome for the silver screen and modern audiences. Questions how Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra differs from the ancient queen; why Hollywood allows the slave in “Gladiator” to become more powerful than an emperor; why ancient audiences continue to be fascinated with the ancient world; and how ancient texts are changed to fit modern expectations. Integrates the reading of ancient authors with the viewing of films based on these texts, such as “Chi-Raq,” to explore both the ancient world and its modern reinterpretation by today's filmmakers. This course originates in Classics and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: CLAS 2242)
Bollywood, India's Hindi-language film industry, produces the most films in the world and has shaped popular musics and cultures throughout India and its diasporas. This course examines the history and present of the Bollywood film music industry, from its origins in the silent film era of the 1910s until today. The course will engage with Bollywood film music in an ethnomusicological context, looking at the social, political, historical, and artistic influences that shaped Bollywood's distinctive musical eras and lives of Bollywood songs through song and dance performance. Students will learn about the confluence of genres including jazz, rock, hip hop, and various Indian classical and folk music in Bollywood soundtracks, and will explore musical connections and divergences with other regional film industries in India. This course originates in Music and is crosslisted with: Asian Studies; Cinema Studies; Dance. (Same as: MUS 2241, ASNS 2592, DANC 2208)
Terms offered: 2025 Fall Semester
Surveys Indigenous-produced film from around the globe, with an emphasis on contemporary Native North American and Aboriginal Australian cinema. Engages recent technological innovations in filmmaking. Analyzes film through discussion and writing, pairing screenings with readings of anthropological and Indigenous scholarship. Considers film in relation to the social, historical, and cultural contexts and broader global processes of indigenous media production and circulation. This course originates in Anthropology and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ANTH 2350)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
Centers the process of making ethnographic media through the overarching framework of doubles. Described by Jean Rouch as “the art of the double,” cinema unites the real and the imagined through symbolic layering and technological reproduction. Engages scholarship in anthropology and cinema studies, as well as media ranging from early ethnographic film to the contemporary avant-garde. Includes topics such as ethical co-creation, representational othering, ethno-fiction, sensory ethnography, sonic curation, and the social life of cinema. Students develop practical production skills including planning, recording, shooting, and editing. Emphasizes the power of learning through doing, with students crafting audio and visual media projects at the intersection of course themes and their own lives. This course originates in Anthropology and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ANTH 2360)
Terms offered: 2024 Fall Semester
Introduction to the basic practices of writing for the screen, including concepts, techniques, and predictable problems. Students study and analyze films and scripts from the perspective of the screenwriter and complete a writing project of their own. Note: Fulfills the creative writing concentration requirement for English majors. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 2860)
Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Fall Semester
Examines the particular ways in which, in the aftermath of New German Cinema (NGC), the cinematic medium constructs protagonists of mass appeal (terrorists, spies, slackers, etc.) while moving beyond the limits and possibilities of a national cinematic tradition and toward a European (and global) cinematic language. Pays special attention to historical advancement, over the past four decades, of material conditions of film production, distribution, and reception as well as to the development of cinematic genres, techniques, and effects that cinema has on other art forms. Filmmakers/films may include von Trotta (“Marianne and Juliane”), Petersen (“Das Boot,” “The Neverending Story”), von Donnersmarck (“Lives of Others”), Wolf (“Solo Sunny”), Schlöndorff (“The Legend of Rita”), Misselwitz (“Winter adé”), Edel (“Baader-Meinhof Complex”), Hirschbiegel (“Downfall”), Ade (“Forest for the Trees,” “Toni Erdmann”), Link (“Nowhere in Africa”), Petzold (“Yella,” “Barbara”), Tykwer (“Run Lola Run,” “Three”), Schmid (“Distant Lights”), Dresen (“Stopped on Track”), Dörrie (“Men,” “Nobody Loves Me”), Ruzowitsky (“Counterfeiters”), Maccarone (“Veiled”), Akin (“Edge of Heaven,” “The Cut”), Gerster (“A Coffee in Berlin”), Schipper (“Victoria”). Fulfills international requirement for cinema studies. Taught in English. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GER 2252)
Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester
Explores the representation of a range of ethical questions in film as well as the ethics of film, including the formal and stylistic, historical, and political decisions made in constructing cinematic images. Arranged in the form of case studies, compares and contrasts examples of international film with a focus on theoretical questions and approaches. May consider the ways in which films represent traumatic events in history (e.g., the Holocaust), environmental disasters, and sexual and gender identity, to name a few. Addresses questions of cinematic genre as well as spectatorship (e.g., identification and repulsion, taste, appropriateness, humor, shock, activism as response). Note: Fulfills the film theory and the non-US cinema requirements for cinema studies minors. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GER 2253)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester
An examination of the literary and cinematic treatment of the Holocaust, with a focus on how writers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists represent the National Socialists' systematic murder of millions of human beings. A range of literary genres (diary, memoir, drama, poetry, novel, graphic novel) and films (documentary, historical drama, comedy) are explored and the ethical questions raised by each chosen genre are discussed. The basic questions raised by the course are: To what extent are literature and film capable of evoking this period of mass suffering and what different aspects of the Holocaust and its history are stressed by the various genres? What can our study of the Holocaust teach us with regard to contemporary issues surrounding totalitarianism and racism? No knowledge of German is required. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GER 2254)
Advanced Seminar. Explores a spectrum of films produced since 1950 that engage African American cultural experience. Topics may include black-white buddy movies, the L.A. Rebellion, blaxploitation, the hood genre, cult classics, comedy and cross-dressing, and romance dramas. Of special interest will be the documentary impulse in contemporary African American film; gender, sexuality, and cultural images; the politics of interpretation—writers, filmmakers, critics, and audiences; and the urban context and the economics of alienation. Extensive readings in film and cultural theory and criticism. Note: Fulfills the film theory requirement for Cinema Studies minors. Beginning with the Class of 2025, this class will fulfill the African American, Asian American, Indigenous, Latinx, multiethnic American, or global literature requirement for English majors. This course is U.S.-based. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Africana Studies; Cinema Studies. (Same as: ENGL 3011, AFRS 3011)
Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester
Examines the aesthetic and narrative qualities of recent Italian television in the globalized context of the streaming era. Focuses in particular on the role of cultural specificity, or 'italianità,”, in Italian-language media intended for the international market. Explores developments in the transnational circulation of Italian television series in relation to streaming technology, platforms, economics, and media policies in Italy and abroad. Analyzes contemporary series like Gomorrah, Luna Nera, My Brilliant Friend, and Mare Fuori, as well as their popularity with global audiences. Coursework includes the creation of an analytical or creative video essay in addition to traditional written research. Previous experience with video- editing software like Premiere or Final Cut Pro is beneficial, but not required. Note: Students taking the course to fulfill a 3000-level course requirement for the Italian Sstudies or Romance Languages and Literatures major or the minor in Italian Studies will view media and submit written and videographic assignments in Italian, meeting regularly with an instructor and/or Italian teaching fellow to support continuing development of Italian-language skills. Course may be counted toward the non-US cinema requirement for the cCinema sStudies minor. Language of instruction is English. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ITAL 3013)
Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester
In her memoir, In the Dream House, author Carmen Maria Machado defines the female gothic as consisting of 'woman plus habitation.' In this class, we will examine literary and cinematic texts that represent the endangerments faced by women in architectural and social spaces. We will explore the affects of fear and paranoia and their relationship to domesticity, as well as the ways in which more recent modes of the gothic have shifted their concerns to intersectional identities. Authors and directors may include Ari Aster, Alfred Hitchcock, Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Carmen Maria Machado, Toni Morrison, Jordan Peele, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Fulfills the advanced seminar requirement for English majors and Cinema Studies minors and the theory requirement for Cinema Studies minors. This course originates in English and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies; Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: ENGL 3037, GSWS 3037)
Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester
Examines China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) through the lens of cinema. Viewed as one of the most destructive mass movements in China’s modern history, the CR dramatically shaped national politics and deeply affected the life of ordinary people. With film productions made during and after the CR as primary materials, the course seeks to explain the nature of the Cultural Revolution as well as how motion pictures (re)construct CR rhetoric and why the CR remains a source of trauma that haunts the memories of those who experienced it. Popular film titles such as 'The White Haired Girl', 'To Live', 'Farewell My Concubine', and others will lead students on a journey through history via the cinemas of socialist model operas, post-socialist retrospections, and alternative re-constructions. The course aims to be intellectually thought-provoking and cinematically engaging. Note: The course fulfills the major in Asian studies and minor in Chinese. It also fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Asian Studies and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ASNS 3080)
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester
Examines Italy’s role in the evolution of the modern-day diva, star, and celebrity: from the transformation of religious icons such as the Madonna and the Magdalene into the divas, vamps, and femme fatales of early cinema to the development of silent cinema’s strongman into a model for charismatic politicians like Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and media-mogul-turned-prime-minister Silvio Berlusconi. Pays special attention to tensions between Italy’s association with cinematic realism and its growing celebrity culture in the second half of the twentieth century through today. Texts may include Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, A Fistful of Dollars, A Special Day, and The Young Pope, along with readings on key topics in star studies, such as silent stardom; stardom and genre; transnational stardom; and race, sex, and stardom. Students make use of bibliographic and archival sources to conduct independent research culminating in term papers and audiovisual essays. Note: fulfills the non-US cinema and theory requirements for Cinema Studies minors. Taught in English. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: ITAL 3077)
Considers both mainstream and independent films made by or about gay men and lesbians. Four intensive special topics each semester, which may include classic Hollywood stereotypes and euphemisms; the power of the box office; coming of age and coming out; the social problem film; key figures; writing history through film; queer theory and queer aesthetics; revelation and revaluations of film over time; autobiography and documentary; the AIDS imperative. Writing intensive; attendance at evening film screenings is required. Note: Fulfills the film theory requirement for cinema studies minors. This course originates in Cinema Studies and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GSWS 3310)
Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester
Considers the flowering of German cinema during the Weimar Republic and its enormous impact on American film. Examines work produced in Germany from 1919 to 1933, the films made by German expatriates in Hollywood after Hitler’s rise to power, and the wide influence of the expressionist tradition in the following decades. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.. Note: Fulfills the non-US cinema requirement for cinema studies minors.
Explores how filmmakers have constructed public history through films professing to tell the life stories of important individuals. Examines the biopic as a significant and long-lived genre, looks at issues of generic change and stability, and considers the narrative process in relation to historic events and individuals. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester
Explores film as a language with its own set of governing rules or codes distinct from those used for storytelling in other mediums. Analyzes key films that have expanded cinema’s communicative power together with theoretical writings that interpret that power. Studies the ideologies associated with aspects of film language like montage, parallel editing, and deep focus. Films include works by D.W. Griffith, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Julie Dash, and Christopher Nolan, among others. Readings include works by Soviet avant-garde theorist and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, French film theorists André Bazin and Christian Metz, and American art historian and theorist Kaja Silverman, among others. Weekly assignments include film screenings, readings, and oral and written film analyses. Students will complete independent, semester-long research projects culminating in term papers or audiovisual essays. Note: fulfills the 3000-level and theory requirement.
Founded as a domestic DVD-by-mail rental company in 1997, today’s Netflix is a multinational entertainment conglomerate with over 250 million subscribers in more than 150 countries. While the growth of Netflix has coincided with much broader changes in media content delivery and consumer habits, the company’s canny ability to capitalize on these changes has positioned it at the forefront of change. In occupying this unique position, Netflix has been both credited and condemned for dramatically “disrupting” the traditional media landscape. This class takes the discourse of Netflix as disruptor as a starting point for historicizing and analyzing the twenty-first century commercial media landscape. In this course, Netflix is used as a locus for studying media delivery, contemporary film and television programming, streaming platforms, algorithmic culture, transnational distribution and infrastructures, binge-watching, and niche audiences. We will also consider how Netflix’s inroads into prestige film and original television production have upended traditional industry hierarchies. As bearer of contemporary media industry conditions, this course surveys how scholars, business leaders, mediamakers, and journalists have studied and written about Netflix as both industry player and cultural institution.
Terms offered: 2025 Spring Semester
Examines the films of John Ford, from the silent period to the 1960s. Considers his working methods and visual composition, as well as consistent themes and characterizations. Investigates Ford’s reputation in light of shifting American cultural values. Attendance at weekly evening screenings is required.
Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester
From storyboarding and script-writing to the exploration of French and Francophone cinematographic genres, introduces students to much of what goes into making a twelve-minute short movie. Teaches how to create characters, write dialogues, and act for the camera in French. Also introduces students to filmmaking techniques, from camera work to editing. Students improve their oral and writing skills as well as their knowledge of French and Francophone film while working toward the goal of producing collaboratively a short film. Conducted in French. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: FRS 3215)
Seminar. Provides insight into contemporary film production from the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco). Explores questions of gender and sexuality, national identity, political conflict, and post- and neo-colonial relationships in the context of globalization and in conditions of political repression and rigid moral conservatism. Examines how filmmakers such as Lakhdar Hamina, Férid Boughedir, Moufida Tlatli, Nedir Moknèche, Malek Bensmaïl, Lyès Salem, Hicham Ayoub, and Leyla Bouzid work in a challenging socio-economic context of film production in consideration of setbacks and obstacles specific to the developing world. Taught in French. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: FRS 3216, MENA 3216)
Explores the important role that myths have played in German cultural history. While founding myths of Germanic culture (e.g., Nibelungen) are considered, focuses especially on myth in relation to fairy tales, legends (including urban legends of the twentieth century), and borderline genres and motifs (e.g., vampires, witches, automatons), as well as on questions of mythmaking. Examines why modern culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which seemingly neglects or overcomes myths, heavily engages in mythicization of ideas (e.g., gender roles, the unnatural) and popularizes myths through modern media (film, television, the Internet), locations (e.g., cities), and transnational exchange (Disney; the myth of the Orient). Aside from short analytical or interpretive papers aimed at developing critical language skills, students may pursue a creative project (performance of a mythical character, design of a scholarly Web page, writing of a modern fairy tale). Note: Fulfills the film theory and non-US cinema requirements for cinema studies minors. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GER 3395)
Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the concomitant end of the Cold War ushered in what many cultural critics call the era of globalization. An exploration of how contemporary German culture (1990-present) grapples with both the possibilities and uncertainties presented by globalization. Examines a myriad of cultural texts -- films, audio plays, dramas, short fiction, novels, photographs, websites -- as well as mass events (i.e., the Love Parade, the 2006 World Cup) within their political, social, and economic contexts to show how Germany’s troubled past continues to affect the role it plays on the global stage and how its changing demographics -- increased urbanization and ethnic diversity -- have altered its cultural and literary landscape. Critically considers issues such as migration, terrorism and genocide, sex tourism, the formation of the European Union, and the supposed decline of the nation-state. Frequent short writings, participation in debates, and a final research project based upon a relevant topic of individual interest are required. All materials and course work in German. This course originates in German and is crosslisted with: Cinema Studies. (Same as: GER 3397)
Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester