Is television a gendered medium? Given the prevalence of cop shows and male anti-heroes that characterize “peak” or quality TV (both past and present), many would assume that television is a “masculine” medium, made up of “masculine” genres. However, the history of television says otherwise. This course traces the numerous ways that television—as an institution, an industry, a narrative form, and a social space—becomes aligned with various notions of gender, in the form of femininity, domesticity, feminism, “women’s culture,” and the female consumer, all at different historical moments. What these different historical moments do share, however, is the assumption that the female television viewer is always coded as white, middle class, cisgender, and able-bodied. To examine how representations of gender have taken shape on television, we will study television chronologically, spanning television sitcoms and soap operas of the 1950s and 1960s, to the rise of feminist television (Julia, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) in the 1970s, to images of “working women” in the 1980s and 90s. In the final weeks of the seminar, we will discuss the rise of streaming television, “narrowcasting,” and contemporary attempts of intersectionality on television—and how new forms of television have created new ways of thinking about gender.

Location

Meliora Room 218 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course provides a broad overview and introduction to media. We will cover histories of different types of media (internet, radio, audio recordings, television, cable, film, journalism, magazines, advertising, public relations, etc.) as well as various theories and approaches to studying media. No prior knowledge is necessary, but a real interest and willingness to explore a variety of media will come in handy. Occasional outside screenings will be required (but if you cannot attend the scheduled screenings, you may watch the films on your own time through the Multimedia Center reserves.) Students will be evaluated based on assigned writing, classroom discussion leading, participation, short quizzes, midterm exam and final exam.

Location

Meliora Room 203 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

As an introduction to the art of film, this course will present the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema also involves an interaction with audiences and larger social structures.

Location

Dewey Room 2110D (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

This course merges contemporary art production with technologies and social interventions. Students will combine historical, inter-media approaches with new, evolving trends in social practice. This course offering uses cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction, as a framework for examining contemporary art and media production in both theory and practice. Students will deploy introductory level techniques to create new works at the intersection of art, design, and technology. Not open to seniors. $75 Studio Fee. If the course fills and you would like to be added to the waitlist, fill out the form found at this link: https://www.sageart.center/resources.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 102 (MW 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This course will offer a survey of African American film and filmmakers from the early 20th century to the 21st.  Directors we will study include: Oscar Micheaux, Ivan Dixon, Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks, Charles Burnett, Carl Franklin, Dee Rees, Cheryl Dunye, Julie Dash, Kasi Lemmons, Ava DuVernay, Spike Lee, John Singleton, Ryan Coogler, Jordan Peele.  We will also explore the incisive critical and theoretical work African American critics have produced in response to these films and the contexts in which they emerge.

Location

Morey Room 504 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course examines major historical movements and styles in the documentary film tradition, and explores the spread of documentary across a range of media platforms. We will study the expository documentary, ethnographic film, the direct cinema and cinéma vérité movements, documentary’s intersections with avant-garde film, mock documentary and hoax films, personal and autobiographical film and video, animated documentary, and digital interactive documentary media. 

Location

Morey Room 525 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course will explore various concepts of mobility and encounters within ethnographic films and texts. Questions we will investigate include: How does one represent a culture? What notions of race, gender, sexuality and national identities are reinforced and challenged in these works? Who speaks for whom and what are the consequences? What kinds of power relationships are hidden or made visible in these films and texts?

Location

Lattimore Room 540 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course examines major critical issues surrounding the horror genre, through close study of Classical Hollywood, post-classical, and international horror films, and readings in critical theory. Issues to be explored include boundary transgression and bodily abjection in the construction of the horror monster; gender, pregnancy, and the monstrous-feminine; social Otherness (race, class, sexuality) as monstrosity; the figure of the serial killer and the shift from classic to modern horror; the grotesque and the blending of comedy and horror in the zombie film. As a research seminar, the course will involve the development of a substantial research project.

Location

Morey Room 504 (W 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

From rom coms, musical comedies, and sitcoms to tragicomedy, satire, and slapstick, many versions of comedy have made us laugh out loud or smile sardonically from the ancients to the moderns. While this history will have a place in our course, we will primarily investigate comedy in film and television of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will explore critical issues related to comedy, including the function and meaning of laughter and jokes; moments of comic relief; the relationship of comedy to community and crisis; love, sexuality, and romance; the role of the body and whether comedy is a "body genre"; how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class get messily mediated by comedy; the difference of comedy from other modes such as tragedy, horror, and realism; and the varying tones comedy can have from dark to light, serious to fun, and comforting to disturbing. Preference will be given to English, Digital Media Studies, and Film & Media Studies majors fulfilling a requirement.

Location

Gavett Hall Room 312 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

A good science fiction story,' Frederik Pohl proposes, 'should be able to predict not the automobile, but the traffic jam.' This course considers the 'traffic jams'the far-flung possible worlds imagined in Japanese science fictionfrom the 1920s to the present. Genres covered include the short story, short short story, novel, manga, anime, and film. Japanese science fiction is considered in planetary perspective: Japanese works are considered alongside pertinent works from other national traditions of science fiction. This course is interested ultimately in explorations of a futuristic approach to the study of literature: it is interested in what our readings today might tell us about what tomorrow might bring. All readings are done in English translation; all viewing have English subtitling.

Location

Lattimore Room 401 (F 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This course explores three of Italy’s mostprominent postwar directors, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Liliana Cavani, who developed distinct cinemas and contributed radical representations to key cultural debates. 
Students will examine each filmmaker’s specific formal and thematic innovations, such as Fellini’s 
carnivalesque and dreamlike states, Antonioni’s use of space and color, and Cavani’s marginal 
figures and use of flashback. Students will also compare how their works address three of postwar 
Italy’s and the West’s most critical questions: modernization, the 1968 student protests and the 
legacy of Fascism. Films include: Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Amarcord; Antonioni’s Red Desert and 
Zabriskie Point; Cavani’s The Cannibals and The Night Porter. Assignments include: historical, 
biographical and critical readings, film screenings, short papers and a final essay. Readings will 
be in English and films will be shown with English subtitles

Location

Hylan Building Room 105 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Moving images recorded on analog film defined the 20th century in an unprecedented way. This course considers the tangible object that is the source of the image onscreen, and the social, cultural, and historical value of a reel of film as an organic element with a finite life cycle. We focus on the analog photographic element and its origins (both theatrical and small gauge), the basics of photochemical film technology, and the state of film conservation and preservation worldwide. Guest lectures by staff of the Moving Image Department of George Eastman Museum provide a first-hand look at film preservation in action, allowing us to consider analog film as an ephemeral form of material culture: a multipurpose, visual record that is art, entertainment, evidentiary document, and historical artifact. Weekly film assignments. Class meets on River Campus and at George Eastman Museum (900 East Ave, no admission fee but students provide their own transportation). No audits, no pre-requisites. Enrollment limited by hands-on nature of course.

Location

Wegmans Room 1009 (R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An introduction to the three-act film structure. Students will read and view numerous screenplays and films, and develop their own film treatment into a full-length script. 

Location

Lechase Room 182 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course will trace the history of music in film from the inception of silent motion pictures in the late 19th century to present-day productions. Will consider how the aural and visual aspects of the medium interact dramatically and how the music can enhance or otherwise influence interpretation of what is happening on the screen.

Location

Dewey Room 1305 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Focused on but not limited to the first half of the 20th century, this course explores representations of Japan in a wide range of visual and material culture: e.g., ephemera generated by tourism, education and entertainment; advertisements and souvenirs; and wartime propaganda traveling similar routes of exchange. Travel brochures, guidebooks, photographs, postcards, films and other objects reflect changing concepts of urban space, rural culture, industry, geography, and military and political authority. Recurrent iconography and coded images link tourism and educational objects and images with evolving concepts of and questions regarding modernity, nationalism and cultural identity: e.g., how is the meaning of “modernity” in Japan useful to a study of the continuous transformation of culture in specific contexts, as in the transition from ukiyo-e culture to photography and animated films? This lecture/discussion course has a digital component: students work hands-on with the Re-Envisioning Japan Collection and digital archive, learning both critical analysis and digital curation skills. The course includes weekly film assignments and one field trip each to the Memorial Art Gallery and George Eastman Museum. No audits. 

Location

Hylan Building Room 305 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.