Spring 2019 Courses

About the instructor: Charlene Regester is an Associate Professor in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies and Affiliate Faculty for the Global Cinema Minor. She received her BA, MA, Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 (which was nominated by the press to the NAACP Image Awards). She is the 2011 recipient of the Trailblazer Award Hayti Heritage Film Festival and 2007 Oscar Micheaux Book and Film Award from the Oscar Micheaux Film Festival, South Dakota. She has appeared on North Carolina Bookwatch with UNC-TV 2011; WUNC-FM Radio “The State of Things;” and Turner Movie Classics. Documentaries in which she has appeared include: Movies of Color: Black Southern Cinema (2003, Tom Thurman director), Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel (2001), Madison Davis Lacy director), and Birth of a Movement (2017, Bestor Cram and Susan Gray directors).

Instructor: Charlene Regester Location: Graham Memorial Room 0038 Time: TuTh 9:30AM-10:45AM

AAAD 54-001 African Migrations, Boundaries, Displacements, and Belonging

This discussion-oriented seminar will use the works of African authors and filmmakers to explore how this dimension of the African experience has in part shaped the everyday lives of the peoples of the African continent.

Instructor: Michael Lambert. Location: Graham Memorial Room 0213 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

ASIA 61-001 India Through the Lens of Master Filmmakers

Elements of Indian culture and history are illuminated through works chiefly in the art film genre.  Basic film theory is also introduced to help students read the text of film.

Instructor: Pamela Lothspeich Place: Hanes Art Center Room 0215 & New West, Room 0219. Time: TuTh 2:00PM-3:15PM & Mo 4:40PM-7:40PM

ASIA/PWAD 69-001 War and Veterans: Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan

In this seminar, we will explore the various ways that Iran-Iraq, United States-Iraq, and United States-Afghanistan wars have been portrayed in literature, film, and photography. We will deepen and enrich our understanding of war experienced by both veterans and civilians. We will also read articles on war criticism and psychology.

Instructor: Claudia Yaghoobi Locatio: Graham Memorial, Room 0210 Time: TuTh 12:30PM-1:45PM

ENGL 86-001 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: Rebecka Fisher Location: Greenlaw Room 0317 Time: MoWeFr 2:30PM-3:20PM

Instructor: Charlene Regester. Location: Stone Center Room 0209. Time: Tu 3:30PM-6:20PM

ARAB 150-001 Introduction to Arab Cultures

Introduction to the cultures of the Arab world and of the Arabs in diasporas: art, literature, film, music, dance, food, history, religion, folklore, etc.

Instructor: Fadi Bardawil. Location: Nine West, Room 0219. Time: TuTh 8:00AM-9:15Am

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: Jennifer Bauer Location: Howell, Room 0115 Time: MoWe 12:20PM-1:10PM

ARTS 209-001 2-D Animation

Prerequisite, ARTS 104. This class explores several techniques of 2D character animation, including storyboarding and conceptualizing, pencil testing and timing animation, animating simple sequences with Photoshop, experimenting with coloring and materials under a film camera, and compositing in After Effects.

Instructor: Sabine Gruffat Location: Hanes Art Center, Room 0112 Time: MoWe 11:15AM-2:00PM

ASIA/PWAD/JWST 235-001 Israeli Cinema: Gender, Nation, and Ethnicity

The course explores major periods and trends in Israeli cinema.  Focus is given to issues pertaining to gender, ethnicity, and the construction of national identity.

Instructor: Yaron Shemer Location: Hanes Art Center Room 0117 Time: TuTh 12:30PM-1:45PM

Instructor: Yaron Shemer Location: Hanes Art Center Room 0118 Time: Tu 5:00PM-7:00PM (this is a mandatory screening time)

CMPL 142-001 Visual Culture II

The course is designed to consider moving-image media in light of the longer history of media and visual art. To this end, the class follows on a number of pictorial and technology traditions to which film and digital media are heir; including painting, lithography, photography, etc. This year, in particular, we will focus on the relationship between nature (ecology) and art, but we will also take this opportunity to think about the disappearance of the natural world and the significance of images–cinematic and otherwise– today. Screenings for the class will likely include:

Herzog, Fitzcarraldo,

Malick, Days of Heaven

Antonioni, L’Eclisse

Varda, The Gleaners and I

Frammartino, Le Quatrro Volte

Cissé, Yeelen

Haneke, White Ribbon

Kiarostami, Certified Copy

Reichhardt, Night Moves

Haynes, Safe

Instructor: Gregory Flaxman Location: Greenlaw Room 0222 Time: TuTh 2:00PM-3:15PM

CMPL 143-001 History of Global Cinema

Ever since Auguste and Louis Lumière sent their cinematograph on a world tour in 1896, the cinema has been global. At each stop, from St. Petersburg to Mexico City, from Melbourne to New York, the Lumière company shot as well as exhibited films, producing a catalogue of views from 31 countries. In this course, we will consider the original Lumière vision of a truly global cinema, one that accommodates a diversity of cultures in a medium that has enduring worldwide appeal. While we will conduct a broad historical overview of the cinema, our approach will focus on paradigmatic shifts in the medium. Drawing deeply and widely from the history of motion pictures, we consider how the cinema is used to deliver spectacle and develop narrative, measure time and map space, mark genre and make nations, depict reality and experiment with visual expression. By the end of our journey, we will be able to think analytically, historically, and comparatively about a medium that continues to connect distant cultures and peoples. Assignments include three short papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam. This course satisfies both the Visual & Performing Arts (VP) and the Global Issues (GL) general education requirements. It is also a core component of the Film Studies major within English and Comparative Literature, as well as the Global Cinema Minor. (Johnson S19)

Instructor: Martin Johnson Location: Wilson Room 0107  Time: MoWe 1:25PM-2:15PM

Instructor: Abigail Lee Location:Greenlaw Room 320  Time: Fr 8:00AM-8:50AM

Instructor: Abigail Lee Location Bingham Room 0301: Time: Fr1 0:10AM-11:10AM

Instructor: Kenneth Lota Location:Greenlaw Room 0319 Time: Fr 12:20PM-1:10PM

Instructor: Kenneth Lota Location: Bingham Room 0309 Time: Fr 1:25PM-2:15PM

CMPL 280-001 Film Genres: Horror, Thriller, and Dark Comedy

This course considers three film genres in particular: horror, thriller, and dark comedy. While genres tend to be defined on the basis of their recurring stylistic and narrative conventions, we will consider our three genres mainly in terms of their emotional, psychological, visceral, and ideological impact on the audience. How exactly do suspense and surprise operate? How is it that we enjoy frightening and eerie situations? How do horror and thriller genres make use of multisensory atmospheres? Why do we sometimes laugh at onscreen events that are deeply unsettling? And how do these genres provoke discussion around matters of gender, sexuality, and race? These are just a few of the basic questions we will consider along the way. Films likely to be screened: Signs (Shyamalan), Dracula (Browning), The Birds (Hitchcock), Suspiria (Argento), Let the Right One In (Alfredson), Zodiac (Fincher), Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Personal Shopper (Assayas), Videodrome (Cronenberg), Get Out (Peele), Don’t Look Now (Roeg), The Thing (Carpenter), You Were Never Really Here (Ramsay), Barton Fink (Coen brothers), Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer), The Shining (Kubrick), and Hereditary (Aster). NOTE: some of the films we will examine necessarily feature disturbing scenes. This content is vital to the artworks and the course as a whole; please enroll only if you plan to engage such representations in a serious, critical manner. This course satisfies the Visual & Performing Arts (VP) general education requirement. It also counts toward the Global Cinema Minor and the Film Studies Concentration within the English Major.

Instructor: Rick Warner Location: Bingham Room 0301 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

CMPL 379-001 Cowboys, Samurai, and Rebels in Film and Fiction

Cross-cultural definitions of heroism, individualism, and authority in film and fiction, with emphasis on tales or images that have been translated across cultures. Includes films of Ford, Kurosawa, and Visconti.

Instructor: Inger Brodey Location: Dey Hall Room 0313 Time: RuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

COMM 230-001,002 Audio/Video/Film Production and Writing

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. Prerequisites, COMM 130 and 140; Grade of C or better in COMM 130; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisites.

Instructor: Julia Haslett Location: Swain Hall Room 200A Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:50PM

Instructor: Kristin Hondros Location: Swain Hall Room 200A Time: TuTh 2:35PM-4:20PM

COMM 430-001 History of American Screenwriting

This viewing and research-intensive course examines the history of American narrative film through the screenwriter’s experience, using a decade-by-decade approach to examine the political, social, global, psychological, religious, and cultural influences on the art, process, and careers of screenwriters.

Instructor: Michael Acosta Location: Bingham Room 0301 Time: MoWe 1:30PM-2:45PM

COMM 635-001 Documentary Production

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: Julia Haslett Location: Swain Hall Room 106A Time: TuTh 2:00PM-3:15PM

COMM 654-001 Motion Graphics, Special Effects, and Compositing

This course is reserved for COMM students for the first two weeks of enrollment. Non-majors can begin enrolling on November 19th

In this course students will learn a wide range of post-production techniques for video projects, using primarily After Effects (and Photoshop, to a lesser extent). Topics explored include: Compositing, that is to say the integration and collage-ing of multiple video/film/still/text layers. Motion Graphics deals with the movement through 2D and 3D screen space of these layers, and Visual Effects will consider the myriad ways one can distort, color manipulate, and modify these layers, or create such phenomena as smoke, rain, etc. Besides creating projects using these techniques, we will also screen and analyze how this form of image manipulation is used in television and motion pictures.

Learning Objectives

– Develop a wide range of skills in motion graphics, compositing and special effects for film, video, and the web.

– More specifically become moderately proficient with Adobe After Effects, one of a number of software applications used for this type of image manipulation.

– Produce 5 short videos of progressively greater technical proficiency and aesthetic savvy that demonstrate competence in these skills using After Effects.

– Engage in a constructive critique of these short videos with peers and the instructor.

– View and analyze a wide range of outside material that use these techniques in creative and engaging ways.

Instructor: Edward Rankus Location: Swain Hall Room 200A MoWe 9:05AM-10:05AM

COMM 690-002/ARTS 490-001 Advanced Topics in Communication Studies/Studio Art–Movie Making Machines: Learning about Cinema in the Maker Space

Though we generally think of movies as the result of the work of screenwriters, cinematographers, actors, and directors, movies are also the product of a range of scientific and technological concepts and innovations. The magic of the movies begins with the technologies that make moving images possible. This projects-based seminar will introduce students to the fundamental optical and technological principles of motion pictures. By using the Maker Space to design and fabricate cameras, lenses, film strips, and movie projectors, students will gain a deep understanding of the material and technological foundations of the cinema, and the operating principles that are behind not only the classic films of Hollywood’s past, but the high-definition digital imaging technologies of the present.

Over the semester, students will learn about the history and science of early cinema through lectures and readings while delving into the principles of photography, movie film, movie cameras, and movie projectors. They will explore the wonderful world of pre-cinematic optical toys by designing and fabricating a zoetrope, a pre-cinema optical device that creates simple animated effects. They will use digital modeling software to fabricate a pinhole camera, and will use the darkroom to hand-process the photographic images they make. They will use the laser cutter to etch their own 16mm movie film, and will explore the transformation of serial still images into motion pictures. Through these projects, students may invent new cinematic machines that we have not yet begun to imagine, and that are made possible with the use of the innovative tools at BeAM.

Instructor: Sabine Gruffat, William Brown Location: Hanes Art Center Room 0112 Time: MoWe 9:05AM-10:45AM

COMM 690-003 Advanced Topics in Communication Studies– Sound for Film and Video: Audio Aesthetics

Think about your favorite film. Would you still like to watch it with the sound turned off? If your answer is no, then this class is for you.

In this course, we will explore the aesthetics of sound design for motion pictures. We will listen to movies. Lots of movies. Listening, after all, is an act of subversion or rebellion in a world that privileges the image. Our goal is to give the soundtrack its due. Through discussions, readings, and a series of production projects, we will consider the elements that constitute a soundtrack and examine the ways that sound finds a home on the Silver Screen.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

The aim of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the technical, conceptual, and aesthetic implications of the motion picture soundtrack, with an emphasis on sound-image relationships. Students will be asked to gain proficiency in the use of video cameras, audio recorders, and editing software, and to develop an appreciation of the expressive and artistic possibilities of sound in film.

Instructor:William Brown Location: Swain Hall Room 200A Time: MoWe 12:20PM-2:15PM

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: Megan Matchinske Location: Greenlaw Room 0319 Time: TuTh 2:00PM-3:15PM

ENGL 143-001  Film and Culture: American Cinema to 1960

This course examines the ways in which culture and history shape and are shaped by motion pictures. In this course, we will focus specifically on films that highlight race and racial issues.  The course emphasizes discussion and a broad range of screenings, as opposed to canonical film studies topics and movies, and uses comparative methods that group related films as well as films and texts. The purpose of this strategy is for students to broaden their perspectives on film by appreciating connections between the past and the present, between established ideas and reinterpretations of those ideas, between texts and their screen adaptations, and between films and filmmakers—all the while interrogating the role that race plays in both American film and related global cinema.  By playing the familiar against the unfamiliar, this course encourages students to reexamine what is “normal,” as well to question how the movie screen both influences and reflects audiences’ views about race.

Instructor: Jennifer Larson Location: Greenlaw Room 0222 Time: MoWeFr 10:10AM-11:00AM

ENGL 143-002 Film and Culture

Our course attempts to trace the principal expressions (artistic, political, psychological, religious, technological) of modern culture. We will ask the most basic questions: What is the nature of modern culture? What are its challenges? What future awaits? In the attempt to answer these questions, we will hone the skills of visual and philosophical analysis and deepen our sense of film’s evolution, variety, and sophistication. Drawing on films from China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., the course will consider differences in national, generational, and personal perspectives.

Instructor: David Ross Location: Greenlaw Room 0222 Time: MoWeFr 9:05AM-9:55AM

ENGL 255-001 Introduction to Media Studies

From handbills and lithographs to television commercials and Internet clickbait, advertising has shaped our experience of print, audiovisual, and digital media. In this class, we will explore how film and media has been used, transformed, and coopted by companies interested in its advertising potential. While advertising¿s role as a sponsor of magazines, radio shows, television stations, and websites is well known, in this class we will consider how advertisers helped create and sustain these media in the first place. Through case studies of pivotal advertising campaigns from the 19th century to the present, and close readings of advertising films, television commercials, and Internet campaigns, we will learn how advertisers use and expand the possibilities of media to communicate with a mass audience, with implications that carry over to artistic and noncommercial uses of media. Furthermore, we will explore current-day advertising media, and contemplate its future in a world where advertising messages are both diverse and personalized. Assignments include short response papers, a take-home midterm, and a final exam.

Instructor: Martin Johnson Location: Bingham Room 0317 Time: MoWeFr 9:05AM-9:55AM

ENGL 323-001 American Cinema of the 1970s: New Hollywood and Beyond

This course will investigate one of the most important decades in the history of American cinema, when formal experimentation went hand in hand with an intensity of political consciousness not equaled before or since. We will explore how films of this period reflect and respond to the social unrest surrounding the Watergate scandal; political assassinations; the diverted revolutionary hopes of the 1960s; and the war in Vietnam. We will consider the ways in which these films critique and reshape traditional genres, from the Western and war film to the musical and noir detective film. We will look at the rise of the new blockbuster as it drastically changed Hollywood’s production environment. Alternatives to Hollywood, from independent films to Blaxploitation will be addressed. We will consider the legacy of this decade of American cinema and its relevance to our current cultural moment. And we will study the extraordinary innovations of several major filmmakers including Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Malick, Altman, Nichols, and Cassavetes among others. Films likely to be screened include: The Graduate, Wanda, Days of Heaven, All the President’s Men, Chinatown, Killer of Sheep, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Easy Rider, The Long Goodbye, Taxi Driver, Network, Woman Under the Influence, Carrie, A New Leaf, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Heaven’s Gate, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, The Conversation, and Alien. This course satisfies the Visual & Performing Arts (VP) general education requirement. It also counts toward the Global Cinema Minor and the Film Studies Concentration within the English Major.

Instructor: Rick Warner Location: Greenlaw Room 0302 Time: TuTh 3:30PM-4:45PM

ENGL 340 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: Jeanne Moskal Location: Greenlaw Room 0301 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

ENGL 680-001 Film Theory

Philosophy of the Image: Media, Ecology and Technology

This course focuses on Gilles Deleuze two cinema books, The Movement-Image and The Time-Image, inasmuch as they form the basis for an evolution/ecology of images and anticipate our technological/digital transformation. Thus, we’ll use Deleuze’s philosophy to grapple with biological and morphogenetic questions (or what we’ll call “prehumanism”) and contemporary socio-technical questions (“posthumanism”). Intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, the class will be largely lecture-oriented, and I’ve arranged for Anne Sauvagnargues (Professor of Philosophy at Paris X, Nanterre) to come to UNC and co-teach the class for several weeks at the end of the semester.

Instructor: Gregory Flaxman Location: Greenlaw Room 0305 Time: We 5:45PM-8:35PM

GSLL 260-001 From Berlin to Budapest: Literature, Film and Culture of Central Europe

Central Europe, at the center of dramatic historical changes–WWI, emergence of independent nation states, WWII and Holocaust, Communism and its end, incorporation into the European Union–produced unprecedented cultural results. The creative voices of writers and filmmakers have relevance far beyond this region.

Instructor: Hana Pichova Location: Phillips Room 0265 MoWe: 9:05AM-9:55AM

HIST 124-001 United States History Through Film

Explores the history of the United States through films made about various historical eras. For each film, the instructor will lecture on the time period(s), the class will read relevant primary and secondary sources, and then the class will watch and discuss the film.

Instructor: William Brundage Location: Manning Room 0209 Time: MoWe 10:10AM-11:00AM

HIST 302H-001 Movies Make History: Films as Primary Sources in Europe and America

History teachers often assign novels that capture the essence of the era. When they show movies, however, they tend to prefer filmic recreations on an historical event. These movies illustrate the age in which they were produced better than they do the event in question, so class discussion centers around “accuracy” and “objectivity.” This course takes a different approach, and treats films as primacy sources for studying the historical context in which they were made. Beginning with the development of narrative film in 1908, it will trace change by looking sequentially at those nationally specific genres that had repercussions beyond national borders. The primary historical themes will be the repercussions of two world wars in the United States and its European allies and enemies. Both wars played a pivotal role in the rise of communism as an alternative to the liberal democracies that consistently proved unable to fulfill their utopian aspirations. But nor could communism meet its ideological expectations, and this course ends in 1991, when Frances Fukuyama’s ballyhooed “end of history!” with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Instructor: Linda McCreynolds Location: Mitchell Room 0009 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15AM

ITAL 337-001 Cinema for Italian Conversation

Expansion of speaking, writing, vocabulary, and grammar in Italian through the study of a variety of films. Topics relating to global issues, transnational connections between different countries, and diversity in Italy will be explored.

Instructor: TBA Location: Murphey Room 0111 Time: MoWeFr 1:25PM-2:15PM

ITAL 340-001 Italian America in Literature and Film

Explores the images of Italian Americans in literature and film, from representations of Italian immigrant otherness to attempts at identity construction, differentiation, and assimilation by Italian American authors and filmmakers.

Instructor: TBA Location: Dey Hall Room 0303 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

MUSC 292-001 Media and Social Change in Africa

The historical and ongoing tradition  of protest by African artists with particular focus on the aesthetics, politics, and geography of innovative grassroots movements on the African continent that effect social change through music and film.

Instructor: Chérie Ndaliko Location: Kenan Music Building Room 3029 Time: MoWeFr 1:25PM-2:15PM

PORT 323-001 Cultures of Brazil, Portugal and Portuguese Africa

Emphasizes the learning of Portuguese through cultural context. Language, society, and miscegenation will be approached through texts and films. Focus on important aspects of religion, festivities, and popular music from the Portuguese-speaking countries of three continents.

Instructor: Patricia Fuentes Lima Location: Dey Hall Room 0201 Time: MoWeFr 11:15AM-12:05PM

PORT 370-001 Modern Brazil through Literature and Film in Translation

This course is devoted to the study of Brazilian culture and history through representative works of the late 19th- and early 20th-century literature with supplemental films. Taught in English. Available for major/minor credit in Portuguese if readings and written work are done in Portuguese.

Instructor: Richard Vernon Location: Peabody Room 0218 Time: MoWeFr 12:20PM-1:10PM

PORT 540-001 Cultural Topics from the Lusophone World

This course examines trends in the cultural production of the Lusophone world from the 19th century to the present, including philosophy, art, film, music, and social practices in Portugal, Brazil, and Lusophone Africa. Topics may include artistic movements, race, class, gender, colonialism, and religion.

Instructor: Carolina Sa Carvalho Location: Hamilton Hall Room 0351 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

PRSN 306-001 Persian Language through Literature, Film, and Media

Students will study literary writings and filmic texts from traditional literature to contemporary media (including plays, film, television, etc.). Students will engage in various communicative activities focusing on all language skills and building vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. Literary and filmic texts will also improve students’ cultural awareness.

Instructor: Shahla Adel Location: Murphey Room 0221 Times: MoWe 4:40PM-5:55PM

SPAN 340-001 Iberian Cultural Topics

This course studies trends in thought, art, film, music, and social practices in the Iberian context, and includes the study of Spain’s historical nationalities. Topics may include nationalism, ethnicity, race, class, gender, migration, and popular culture.

Instructor: Irene Gomez-Castelllano Location: Dey Hall Room 0301 Time: TuTh 11:00AM-12:15PM

WGST 230-001 Women in Contemporary Art: A Field Study

This seminar will explore the lives and work of women in contemporary art through a combination of readings, films, interviews, studio visits with area artists, and visits to museums and galleries. We will engage questions of identity, gender, sexuality, politics, and cultural representation and how these affect the creativity, media, and final output of women artists.

Instructor: Susan Harbage Page Location: Venable Room G307 Time: TuTh 3:30PM-4:45PM

WGST 350-001 Spitting in the Wind: “American” Women, Art, and Activism

This course uses films, novels, and essays to engage with various notions of activism (as represented in art and social justice organizations) at play in hemispheric America.

Instructor: Tanya Shields Location: Phillips Room 0220 Time: MoWe 3:35PM-4:50PM