Fall 2018 Courses
First-Year Seminars
Acquaint yourself with the study of film and media by taking a First-Year Seminar, which are open only to first-year students.
ASIA 57 – 001 First-Year Seminar: Dis-Orienting the Orient
Examines how the East is constructed as the Orient in different historical periods: 19th-century European colonialism, 1950s to 1960s Hollywood films, contemporary Japanese animation, and the current global war on terrorism.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TBA
COMM 89 – 001 First-Year Seminar: Special Topics
Instructor Location Time
William Brown Murphey – Rm 0118 MoWe 9:05AM – 10:20AM
ENGL 53 – 001 First-Year Seminar: Slavery and Freedom in African American Literature and Film
The seminar’s purpose is to explore the African American slave narrative tradition from its 19th-century origins in autobiography to its present manifestations in prize-winning fiction and film.
Instructor Location Time
William Andrews Greenlaw – Rm 0317 MoWeFr 1:15PM – 2:05PM
ENGL 57 – 001 First-Year Seminar: Future Perfect: Science Fictions and Social Form
This class will investigate the forms and cultural functions of science fiction using films, books, and computer-based fictional spaces (Internet, video games, etc).
Instructor Location Time
Staff Bingham – Rm 0309 MoWeFr 1:25PM – 2:15PM
ENGL 86 – 001 First-Year Seminar: The Cities of Modernism
This course is a cross-cultural and intermedial exploration of the imagery of the Great City in high modernist works of literature, art, and film.
Instructor Location Time
Staff Greenlaw – Rm 0317 MoWeFr 8:00AM – 8:50AM
General Course List
AAAD 202 – 001 African Film and Performance
This course examines the misrepresentation of Africa and Africans in western colonial films and how African filmmaking and performing have responded to the colonialist narrative.
Instructor Location Time
Samba Camara Stone Center – Rm 0209 MoWe 10:10AM – 11:25AM
AAAD 250 – 001 The African American in Motion Pictures: 1900 to the Present
This course will analyze the role of the African American in motion pictures, explore the development of stereotypical portrayals, and investigate the efforts of African American actors and actresses to overcome these portrayals.
Instructor Location Time
Charlene Regester Woollen Gym – Rm 0303 Tu 3:30PM – 6:20PM
ARAB 337 – 001 Borders and Walls in the Arab World
Can art, film, and literature undo cultural, social, and political divisions created by borders and walls in the Arab world? Students may not receive credit for both ARAB 337 and ARAB 338.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TBA
ARAB 453 – 001 Film, Nation, and Identity in the Arab World
Introduction to history of Arab cinema from 1920s to present. Covers film industries in various regions of the Arab world and transnational Arab film. All materials and discussion in English.
Instructor Location Time
Nadia Yaqub Hanes Art Center – Rm 0215 TuTh 12:30PM – 1:45PM
ARTH 159 – 001 The Film Experience: Introduction to the Visual Study of Film
A critical and historical introduction to film from a visual arts perspective. The course surveys the history of film from its inception to the present, drawing upon both foreign and American traditions.
Instructor Location Time
Staff Hanes Art Center – Rm 0117 MoWeFr 3:35PM – 4:25PM
ARTS 116-001 Introduction to Web Media
Basic computer skills required. This course investigates the emergence of Web, interactive, and mobile technologies as artistic tools, communication technologies, and cultural phenomena. Students will design and produce interactive Web sites. The course covers principles of Web-based programming and design via HTML and CSS.
Instructor Location Time
Sabine Gruffat Hanes Art Center – Rm 112 MoWe 2:30-5:15
ASIA 151 – 001 Literature and Society in Southeast Asia
This course is an introduction to the societies of Southeast Asia through literature. Background materials and films will supplement the comparative study of traditional works, novels, short stories, and poems.
Instructor Location Time
Lorraine Aragon Hanes Art Center – Rm 0215 TuTh 9:30AM – 10:45AM
ASIA 231 – 001 Bollywood Cinema
This course explores the development of the Indian cinema, with particular emphasis on the Hindi-Urdu films produced in Mumbai (Bollywood).
Instructor Location Time
Afroz Taj Davie – Rm 0112 TuTh 3:30PM – 4:45PM
Staff Phillips – Rm 0212 Fr 11:15AM – 12:05PM
Staff Phillips – Rm 0212 Fr 1:25PM – 2:15PM
Staff Phillips – Rm 0212 Fr 2:30PM – 3:20PM
ASIA 258 – 001 Iranian Prison Literature
This course explores literature written in prisons, particularly under the Islamic Republic. Students will read documents to understand human rights (and violations thereof) from a historical perspective. Since literature, film, philosophy, and theory offer invaluable perspectives, we will examine their contributions in the reflection on human rights in Iran’s prisons.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TBA
ASIA 331 – 001 Cracking India: Partition and Its Legacy in South Asia
What happened when the British carved Pakistan out of the Muslim-dominated corners of India? Readings and films focus on the causes and consequences of this event, the Partition of India.
Instructor Location Time
Pamela Lothspeich New West – Rm 0219 TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
CHIN 244 – 001 Introduction to Modern Chinese Culture through Cinema
This course uses select feature and documentary films, supplemented by texts of critical and creative literature, to introduce students to a broad overview of modern China since the mid-19th century, focusing on the major events that have shaped a turbulent course of decline, revolution, and resurgence.
Instructor Location Time
Gang Yue Hanes Art Center – Rm 0215 Tu 3:30PM – 6:00PM
CHIN 346 – 001 History as Fiction or Fiction as History? Early Chinese History in Film and Literature
Through analysis of the role movies play in the formation of popular perceptions of the past, this course provides an introduction to the history of the Qin and Han dynasties.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TBA
CMPL 144 – 001 Film and Media Culture
As an academic version of a “film club,” this wide-ranging course will consider both mainstream and independent cinema in the US during the 1990s. We will engage a variety of genres, including the crime film, teen/coming-of-age film, biopic, historical epic, western, horror, war film, action/adventure, science fiction, melodrama, and romance. Among the topics we will address are the explosion of “indie” cinema, the advent of digital technology and computer-generated imagery, the portrayal of race, characteristic attitudes of Generation X, postmodern pastiche and parody, debates about screen violence, and issues of gender and sexuality. Films likely to be shown are: Goodfellas (Scorsese), Jackie Brown(Tarantino), The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme), Malcolm X (Spike Lee), Unforgiven (Eastwood), Rushmore (Wes Anderson), Election (Payne), The Virgin Suicides (Sophia Coppola), Before Sunset (Linklater), The Big Lebowski (Coen brothers), Safe (Todd Haynes), Dead Man (Jarmusch), Schindler’s List (Spielberg), Boogie Nights (P.T. Anderson), The Thin Red Line (Malick), Being John Malkovich (Jonze), and Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce). Students must also enroll in a recitation. See sections below.
Instructor Location Time
Rick Warner Chapman Hall – Rm 0201 TuTh 3:30PM – 4:45PM
CMPL 144 – 601
Instructor Location Time
Staff Bingham – Rm 0301 Fr 11:15AM – 12:05PM
CMPL 144 – 602
Instructor Location Time
Staff Dey Hall – Rm 0313 Fr 12:20PM – 1:10PM
CMPL 144 – 603
Instructor Location Time
Staff Bingham – Rm 0301 Fr 9:05AM – 9:55AM
CMPL 144 – 604
Instructor Location Time
Staff Bingham – Rm 0301 Fr 1:25PM – 2:15PM
CMPL 144 – 605
Instructor Location Time
Staff Bingham – Rm 0301 Fr 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Staff Bingham – Rm 0301 Fr 2:30PM – 3:20PM
CMPL 240 – 001 Introduction to Film Theory
What is the specific nature of cinema? What makes it a unique form of expression? What is film’s relationship to the physical world? How do sounds, images, bodies, and narratives onscreen impact us – politically, emotionally, physically, mentally? How does film compare and contrast with the other, older arts such as literature, music, or painting? How does film fit within the current digital media landscape? Have film and television merged in our culture of streaming? How does film itself work as an instrument of thought? These are just a few of the questions we will explore. We will read a wide variety of theoretical approaches, including realism, psychoanalysis, feminism, affect theory, phenomenology, and critical race theory. We will consider questions of authorship, performance, genre, fiction versus documentary, the aesthetics of mood, metacinema, and more. Films we will likely examine include: My Life to Live (Godard, 1962), Notorious(Hitchcock, 1946), Magnolia (PT Anderson, 1999), The Player (Altman, 1992), Encounters at the End of the World(Herzog, 2007), Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen bros., 2013), Bush Mama (Gerima, 1979), A Separation (Farhadi, 2011), Personal Shopper (Assayas, 2017), Creepy (K. Kurosawa, 2016), La Jetée (Marker, 1960), Moonlight (Jenkins, 2016), Lady Bird (Gerwig, 2017), Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong, 2006), Two Days, One Night (Dardenne bros., 2014), Atlanta (Glover, 2016-, TV), Twin Peaks: The Return (Lynch 2017, TV).
Instructor Location Time
Rick Warner Peabody – Rm 0216 TuTh 1:30PM – 2:45PM
COMM 130 – 001 Introduction to Media Production
Permission of the instructor for nonmajors. Prerequisite for all production courses. Introduces students to basic tools, techniques, and conventions of production in audio, video, and film.
Instructor Location Time
Staff Swain Hall – Rm 001A Tu 12:30PM – 2:20PM
Staff Swain Hall – Rm 101A Th 12:30PM – 2:30PM
Staff Swain Hall – Rm 101A Fr 9:05AM – 10:55AM
Staff Swain Hall – Rm 101A Fr 11:15AM – 1:05PM
COMM 140 – 001 Introduction to Media History, Theory, and Criticism
An introduction to the critical analysis of film, television, advertising, video, and new media texts, contexts, and audiences.
Instructor Location Time
Alice Marwick Chapman Hall – Rm 0201 MoWe 9:05AM – 9:55AM
COMM 140 – 601 Introduction to Media History, Theory, and Criticism
An introduction to the critical analysis of film, television, advertising, video, and new media texts, contexts, and audiences.
Instructor Location Time
Staff Hanes Art Center – Rm 0117 Mo 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Staff Hanes Art Center – Rm 0117 We 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Staff Woollen Gym – Rm 0302 Fr 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Staff Bingham – Rm 0309 Mo 11:15AM – 12:05PM
Staff Bingham – Rm 0309 We 11:15AM – 12:05PM
Staff Carolina Hall – Rm 0204 Fr 8:00AM – 8:50AM
COMM 230 – 001 Audio/Video/Film Production and Writing
Prerequisites, COMM 130 and 140; Grade of C or better in COMM 130; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisites. The material, processes, and procedures of audio, video, and film production; emphasis on the control of those elements of convention that define form in the appropriate medium. Lecture and laboratory hours.
Instructor Location Time
Edward Rankus Swain Hall – Rm 101A MoWe 12:20PM – 2:15PM
COMM 230 – 002 Audio/Video/Film Production and Writing
Prerequisites, COMM 130 and 140; Grade of C or better in COMM 130; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisites. The material, processes, and procedures of audio, video, and film production; emphasis on the control of those elements of convention that define form in the appropriate medium. Lecture and laboratory hours.
Instructor Location Time
Kristin Hondros Swain Hall – Rm 200A TuTh 2:35PM – 4:25PM
COMM 330 – 001 Introduction to Writing for Film and Television
An introduction to screenwriting for film and television.
Instructor Location Time
Stephen Neigher Stone Center – Rm 0201 TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
Stephen Neigher Murphey – Rm 0117 TuTh 2:00PM – 3:15PM
COMM 331 – 001 Writing the Short Film
Students practice and learn the craft of narrative, short film writing by conceptualizing, outlining, writing, and rewriting three short film scripts. They include one three-minute silent, one five-minute script with dialogue, and one 15-minute script with dialogue.
Instructor Location Time
Dana Coen Stone Center – Rm 0200 TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
COMM 335 – 001 Film Story Analysis
A variety of feature films (both domestic and foreign) are screened in class and analyzed from a storytelling perspective. Emphasis is on the range of possibilities the screenwriter and film director face in the process of managing the audience’s emotional involvement in a story.
Instructor Location Time
Dana Coen Dey Hall – Rm 0306 Th 5:35PM – 8:35PM
COMM 450 – 001 Media and Popular Culture
Prerequisite, COMM 140. Permission of the instructor for nonmajors. Examination of communication processes and cultural significance of film, television, and other electronic media.
Instructor Location Time
Neal Thomas Bingham – Rm 0217 TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
Staff Davie – Rm 0101 MoWeFr 8:00AM – 8:50AM
Staff Dey Hall – Rm 0209 TuTh 8:00AM – 9:15AM
COMM 534 – 001 Aesthetic and Technical Considerations in Making Short Videos
Prerequisite, COMM 230. The course examines the aesthetic and technical elements at work and play in cinematic storytelling. The student is required to complete three projects and will gain hands-on experience in narrative filmmaking.
Instructor Location Time
William Brown Swain Hall – Rm 200A MoWe 12:20PM – 2:15PM
COMM 635 – 001 Documentary Production
Prerequisite, COMM 230. A workshop in the production of video and/or film nonfiction or documentary projects. The course will focus on narrative, representational, and aesthetic strategies of documentary production.
Instructor Location Time
Julia Haslett Swain Hall – Rm 106A TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
COMM 644 – 001 Documentary Production: First Person Filmmaking
Prerequisite, COMM 230. Permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite. Students create documentaries emphasizing the filmmaker’s personal perspective and experience: essay, diary, and autobiographical films, and pieces in which the filmmaker performs a role for expressive or political ends. Significant class time is devoted to work-shopping student films.
Instructor Location Time
Julia Haslett Swain Hall – Rm 106A TuTh 12:30PM – 1:45PM
COMM 654 – 001 Motion Graphics, Special Effects, and Compositing
Prerequisite, COMM 130 or 150; Grade of C or better in COMM 130; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite. In this course students learn a wide range of video post production techniques working mostly with the application After Effects.
Instructor Location Time
Edward Rankus Swain Hall – Rm 200A MoWe 9:05AM – 11:00AM
DRAM 245 – 001 Acting for the Camera
Prerequisite, DRAM 135 or 150; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite. The process of acting and its relationship to the technical and artistic demands of television/film production. Problems of continuity and out-of-sequence filming. Concentration and thinking on camera.
Instructor Location Time
Ray Dooley Center Dramatic Art – Rm 0104 TuTh 9:30AM – 10:45AM
EDUC 527 – 001 Screen Education: Representations of Education in Popular Culture
Explore and analyze how education has been represented in popular culture. “Education” refers to teachers, students, principals, other educators, and the everyday processes of schooling, and “popular culture” refers to school films (fictional films), school documentaries, television shows, music videos and song lyrics, animation, and other media forms.
Instructor Location Time
James Trier Peabody – Rm 0306 TuTh 12:30PM – 1:45PM
ENGL 127 – 001 Writing about Literature
Course emphasizes literature, critical thinking, and the writing process. Students learn how thinking, reading, and writing relate to one another by studying poetry, fiction, drama, art, music, and film.
Instructor Location Time
Hilary Lithgow Greenlaw – Rm 0304 MoWe 4:40PM – 5:55PM
ENGL 142 – 001 Film Analysis
This course offers an introduction to the technical, formal, and narrative elements of the cinema
Instructor Location Time
Bradley Hammer Greenlaw – Rm 0301 MoWeFr 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Gregory Flaxman Gardner – Rm 0008 MoWe 1:25PM – 2:15PM
Staff Murphey – Rm 0204 Fr 1:25PM – 2:15PM
Staff Greenlaw – Rm 0301 Fr 2:30PM – 3:20PM
Staff Greenlaw – Rm 0318 Fr 10:10AM – 11:00AM
Staff Bingham – Rm 0309 Fr 11:15AM – 12:05PM
Staff Greenlaw – Rm 0304 MoWeFr 12:20PM – 1:10PM
Staff Greenlaw – Rm 0302 TuTh 1:25PM – 2:40PM
ENGL 288 – 001 Literary Modernism
In this course students will read early 20th-century poetry, fiction, films, and criticism, and consider the ways these works constituted, defined, and challenged the phenomenon known as literary modernism.
Instructor Location Time
David Ross Greenlaw – Rm 0305 MoWeFr 11:15AM – 12:05PM
ENGL 340 – 001 Studies in Jane Austen
This course focuses on both the novels of Jane Austen and their fate since publication in the early 19th century. They have inspired countless imitations, over 150 sequels and continuations, and more than 30 full-length films. We will trace the transmission and transformation of the original texts across time and cultures.
Instructor Location Time
James Thompson Greenlaw – Rm 0302 TuTh 8:00AM – 9:15AM
ENGL 380 – 001 Film History
Histories of Moviegoing
From the debut of Auguste and Louis Lumière’s cinematograph in 1895 to the premier of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s virtual reality installation piece Carne y arena in 2017, cinema has had an enduring place in global culture. But until recently, film and media scholars have focused on the production and analysis of moving images, ignoring the experienceof the cinema. In this class, we will explore the history of moviegoing and movie culture in a global context. In our journey, we will ask questions such as these: How did moviegoing emerge as a mass phenomenon, and what is its future? Why did the star system develop in the commercial cinema, and what does it have to teach us about our contemporary experience of mediated identities? Which social groups were the most enthusiastic patrons of movie theaters, and how can we use cinema to understand changes in global culture? How was cinema received in different national contexts, in large cities and rural areas, and in different cultures? How have new moving image technologies affected our engagement with the cinema?
In answering these questions, we will interpret primary source materials, consider questions of methodology and evidence, and revisit classic debates about how film history is written. We will also develop and conduct original research projects on the historical experience of the cinema, including historical approaches to contemporary phenomena. In this course, you will learn how to research and write histories of film and media using an array of methodologies and primary source materials. Assignments include several “student-sourced” research projects, which will give you first-hand experience with using primary digital documents as evidence, and, in the second half of the semester, a research project of your choice, which we will develop in class.
Instructor Location Time
Martin Johnson Bingham – Rm 0317 TuTh 9:30AM – 10:45AM
ENGL 580 – 001 Film–Contemporary Issues
Independent Cinema and the American South
From Gone With the Wind (1939) to Forrest Gump (1994), Hollywood representations of the American South paint the region with the broadest of brushes, relying on stereotypes and mythologies of the region and its people. In this class, we will explore films made outside of Hollywood that seek to represent the diversity and complexity of the South. Although our focus will be on contemporary films, we will contextualize recent developments by considering the long history of educational, amateur, independent, avant garde, and documentary film production in the South (George Stoney, Madeline Anderson, Michael Roemer, Jan Millsapps, Elizabeth Barret, Kevin Jerome Everson). We will be particularly interested in films that explore intersectional identities in the contemporary South. Films to be screened or discussed include Mudbound (Rees, 2017); Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012); Mississippi Masala (Nair, 1991); Mystery Train (Jarmusch, 1989); Goodbye Solo (Bahrani, 2008); George Washington (Green, 2000); The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Jones, 2005); Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991); Bright Leaves (McElwee, 2003); Ruby in Paradise (Nuñez, 1993); Southern Comfort (Davis, 2001); Family Name (Alston, 1997); Daughter From Danang (Dolgin & Franco, 2002) and Loggerheads (Kirman, 2005). Assignments include three short response papers, a final research paper, and a class presentation. Graduate students welcome.
Instructor Location Time
Martin Johnson Bingham – Rm 0301 TuTh 11:00AM – 12:15PM
FREN 388 – 001 History of French Cinema I: 1895-1950
Recommended preparation, CMPL143. Study of French cinema from 1895 through 1950, including early French film, silent cinema, surrealism, poetic realism, and postwar cinema. Concepts and vocabulary for film criticism.
Instructor Location Time
Hassan Melehy Dey Hall – Rm 0209 TuTh 3:30PM – 4:45PM
GSLL 283 – 001 Hungarian Cinema since World War II
An introduction to Hungarian society and culture since the end of World War II through a selection of film classics. Films with English subtitles. Readings and discussions in English. Previously offered as HUNG 280.
Instructor Location Time
Staff Dey Hall – Rm 0404 TuTh 9:30AM – 10:45AM
ITAL 333 – 001 Italian Film and Culture
Analysis of films from World War II to the present. Lectures and discussion in English. Films in Italian with English subtitles. Readings in Italian for majors, in translation for nonmajors.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TuTh 2:00PM – 3:15PM
Staff TBA Tu 3:30PM – 4:45PM
JAPN 277 – 001 Empire of Sex: Eroticism, Mass Culture, and Geopolitics in Japan, 1945-Present
Tokyo, Japan, became the center of global pornographic culture after the United States occupation ended in 1952. This course will use film, animation, and historical texts to try to understand how and why this happened. Moreover, we will identify how this phenomenon impacted the lives of Japanese men and women.
Instructor Location Time
Mark Driscoll New West – Rm 0219 Tu 6:30PM – 9:00PM
JAPN 417 – 001 Japanese Culture through Film and Literature
Prerequisite, JAPN 306. This course helps students to improve their Japanese language skills while developing an understanding of Japanese culture through films and literature. Exercises include reading novels in Japanese, close observation of Japanese films, analysis of cultural context, writing summaries, and frequent discussion.
Instructor Location Time
Staff TBA TBA
PORT 388 – 001 Portuguese, Brazilian, and African Identity in Film
Study of the literary and cultural film production of the Portuguese-speaking world on three continents. Films in Portuguese with English subtitles.
Instructor Location Time
Kristine Taylor Dey Hall – Rm 0306 TuTh 11:15AM – 12:30PM