Undergraduate Program

Fall Term Schedule

Fall 2026

Number	Title	Instructor	Time
FMST 132-01 Intro to the Art of Film Jason Middleton TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)
FMST 153-01 Introduction to Sound Art Cary Adams MW 10:25AM - 1:05PM
This course investigates the relationship between humans, machines, and urban environments by examining how the industrial history of the Rust Belt, particularly in Detroit, has shaped music and sound culture. Through practice-based research, students will conduct field recordings of their local urban areas and transform these sounds into musical compositions using non-screen-based hardware devices. Studio Art lab supply fee applied. Introduction to Sound Art: Listening to the Environment This course investigates the relationship between humans, machines, and urban environments by examining how the industrial history of the Rust Belt, particularly in Detroit, has shaped music and sound culture. Through practice-based research, students will conduct field recordings of their local urban areas and transform these sounds into musical compositions using non-screen-based hardware devices. Location (MW 10:25AM - 1:05PM)
FMST 161-01 Introduction to Video Art Pirooz Kalayeh MW 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $78. To be added to the rolling waiting list, please contact Pirooz Kalayeh at pkalayeh@ur.rochester.edu Location (MW 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
FMST 202-02 Language in Advertising Solveiga Armoskaite MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM
The course examines the use advertisers make of language in selling their products and how it affects our perceptions of the product and ourselves. The emphasis in the course is on learning about the structure of language and how we can use it as a guide to observing and understanding the effectiveness of commercial messages. Location (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
FMST 203-01 The Video Essay and Personal Storytelling Pirooz Kalayeh R 2:00PM - 3:15PM T 2:00PM - 3:15PM
Over the past decade, the video essay has become a digital form that increasingly offers makers a critical and creative means of self-expression. In this course, you will learn how to make a video essay, focusing on personal storytelling through videographic production. Working with a media object that is personally meaningful to you—ranging from a film or television series to a video game or literary text—you will develop the aesthetic and technical skills needed to produce your own video essay by the end of the semester. While we will read theoretical work on the video essay, watch video essays by talented makers, and do some reflective writing, the course is primarily a media production workshop. The first half of the semester will be devoted to a series of videographic exercises that let you develop proficiency in Adobe Premiere Pro through close engagement with your media object. The second half of the semester will be devoted to you making a full-length video essay that uses that media object to tell a personal story. No prior skill with Adobe Premiere Pro or any other non-linear editing software is required, though it is welcome. Instructor Permission Required This course will be co-taught by Joel Burges and Pirooz Kalayeh Location (R 2:00PM - 3:15PM) (T 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
FMST 205-01 New Media and Emerging Practice Andrew Salomone MW 4:50PM - 7:30PM
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. Students will deploy introductory level techniques to create new works at the intersection of art, design, and technology. Not open to Seniors. Studio Art lab fee applied. Studio Art lab fee applied. Location (MW 4:50PM - 7:30PM)
FMST 210-01 After the Quake: Introduction to Disaster Literature and Cinema in Japan Lin Meng Walsh TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM
This course introduces students to the rich body of disaster literature and cinema in Japan. We will explore how Japanese artists creatively reflected on themes of loss, grief, trauma, survival, and healing; we will critically analyze how disaster writings and films probe the issues of socio-political infrastructure as well as human pain and strength. Described as events that cause “the breach of collective expectations in institutions and practices that make everyday life work” (Curato and Corpus Ong 2015), the “disasters” we encounter in this class include both natural and human-generated calamities such as fire, earthquake, war, atomic bombing, and epidemic. Also covered in this class are writings on “imagined disasters” as found in science fiction and dystopian fantasy (for example, the 1973 novel Japan Sinks by Komatsu Sakyō and its parody “The World Sinks Except Japan” by Tsutsui Yasutaka). All readings will be in English; knowledge of Japanese language is welcome but not required Location (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)
FMST 212-01 Snakes and Robots: The Non-Human in East Asian Literature and Media Lin Meng Walsh TR 6:15PM - 7:30PM
In Monster Theory, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen defines “the monster” as “an embodiment of difference, a breaker of category, and a resistant Other known only through process and movement” (1996: x). In this class, we look at various forms of literary monsters—animals, robots, plants, and ghosts conjured by the human mind. Through an in-depth engagement with creative works by Pu Songling, Tezuka Osamu, Han Kang, and others, we explore how writers and artists have attempted to move closer to an understanding of humanity by ceaselessly reimagining the non-human. Conducted in English. The course counts towards the English Post-1800 literature requirement Location (TR 6:15PM - 7:30PM)
FMST 216-01 Hispanic Mediascapes in the 21st Century – TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM
This upper level course will give students an overview of cultural topics represented in the Hispanic media beginning in the 21st century to the present. Students will engage with critical issues ranging from environmental studies to technology and Al using as a variety of theoretical lenses to explore those contested topics. The selected films will be contextualized by exploring the social, historical and cultural panoramas that characterize each of the respective films upon their release. In addition, students will learn to analyze film and develop a vocabulary to speak about film theory and practice which they will use in the lectures, presentations, and their written work. Finally, we will discuss the evolving media industry in Latin America and Spain and the future of Hispanic media production as new technologies are revolutionizing the trade. Taught in English. Students who plan to use this course towards the Spanish major and minor will do some readings and projects in Spanish and will have taken SPAN 200 before this course. Location (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)
FMST 221-01 Russian Cinema After the Fall Rita Safariants MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM
This course examines developments and innovations in Russian cinema from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day as the Russian film industry struggled to move from a command to a market economy and adapt to new challenges. We will consider these films as works of cinematic art, as cultural/historical artifacts, tools of propaganda and nation building, aesthetic manifestations of political dissent, and (most importantly) how these ways of "thinking about film" relate to one another and reflect the cultural and ideological complexities of post-Soviet modernity. Spring 2024 subtheme: Depicting War. In English Location (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
FMST 224-01 Film Studies (Disaster Cinema) Brady Fletcher TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM
Topics in the study of film. Please see public notes for specific section titles and course descriptions. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different. Cinemas and screens have been home to some of the most impactful representations of disaster, both fictional and non-fictional, for more than a century. From alien invasion, to nuclear detonation, to so-called "natural disasters," there are countless examples of films and television as texts where cultural anxieties about social, political, and ecological change have manifested again and again. This course will examine this broad tradition of representations of danger and destruction - from classic disaster cinema fare like Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974) and Deluge (Felix E. Feist, 1933), to more experimental works like La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962) and Lessons of Darkness (Werner Herzog, 1992), to recent films like Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011), Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) and The Wandering Earth (Frant Gwo, 2019) - in the hopes of better understanding their history as aesthetic objects and technological achievements, as well as their cultural significance. We will also take the opportunity to question the very meaning of "disaster," often figured in images of spectacular violence but also intelligible in examples of less visible forms of violence like toxic contamination or even economic disaster. Ultimately we will reflect on the cultural and political stakes of disaster cinema in an era of ongoing social and ecological crisis. Location (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)
FMST 230-01 On the Move: Ethnographic Film June Hwang MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)
FMST 239-01 Postwar Italian Directors: Fellini, Antonioni, Cavani Andrew Korn TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
This course explores three of Italy’s most prominent post-WWII 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 thematic and stylistic 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; and 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 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)
FMST 242-01 Global Chinese Media Cultures – TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
How do people, through media, imagine belonging and intimacy across divides and difference? How does media history tell social history? This course examines vibrant and shifting media cultures from multiple Chinese worlds to consider how media histories closely participated in social histories and shaped dynamic modes of affective belonging. We discuss how media arts and infrastructures were developed from disparate sociohistorical conditions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Asian Americas and transnational diasporas, and what their convergences and divergences tell us about political and technological changes of the larger world. Moving across the landscapes of cinema, music, popular culture, digital platforms, and emerging media, we will consider the specificity of each medium and the ways that media crossings open up innovative ways of worlding beyond geopolitical borderlines. Taught in English. Location (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
FMST 259-01 Adapting the Past in Japanese Media – MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM
Adaptations surround us. In films, books, comics, TV, blogs, and radio shows, their popularity seem undeniable. What makes certain stories more adaptable than others? Why do we enjoy revisiting the same narratives over and over again? What motivates artists to craft adaptations of certain works? Is there such a thing as an original work? Are all works adaptations of a sort? In this course, we will focus on the way past narratives have been reclaimed, redefined, and transformed through the process of adaptation in Japanese media. Through this point of entry, students will be able to engage with stories that may or may not be familiar to them, and explore a variety of Japanese media such as novels, short stories, films, or manga. By becoming familiar with stories and their retellings through time and space, students will be able to grasp the historical and cultural events and trends that shaped and reframed these narratives. Starting with excerpts from early works such as The Kojiki, or The Tale of Genji, we will make out ways to most recent works dealing with events such as the triple disaster of Fukushima, to consider why authors and artists look back to the past to produce new works in the ever-changing present. Students will be asked to interact with primary works through English translations before considering and comparing them with their respective adaptations. Through this class, students will familiarize themselves with numerous kinds of Japanese media, from pre-modern texts to modern short stories and films. They will explore different types of adaptations and understand how and why they have been produced and how they were received. Finally, through producing an adaptation themselves, students will obtain first-hand experience of the process of adaptation. All readings will be in English, but previous knowledge of Japanese literature and media is a plus. Location (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)
FMST 260-01 Topics in Screenwriting (Scriptwriting: TV Writing) Pirooz Kalayeh T 11:05AM - 1:45PM
Varrying topics in screenwriting and scriptwriting. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different. Please see public notes for specific section titles and course descriptions. Get an overview of what’s happening in scripted television today as you find ways to refine your own pilot and series idea for the market. There is a plethora of new and exciting shows being released in this current television era. For a new writer, the sheer number of genres and the type of shows can be overwhelming, and you might find yourself at a loss in determining the best way to convey the story you wish to tell. In this course you get a brief overview of some current pilots selected across genres, but demonstrate that regardless of the type, setting, and world of a show, the most successful pilots have certain structural and storytelling elements in common. You learn how to formulate and refine an idea for your own pilot script and receive advice on how to survive the inevitable rough spots you will face in a career in television. Location (T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)
FMST 263-01 Comparative Media Ur Staff TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
What can we learn from comparing different mediums to one another? In this course, we will examine two or more mediums to understand how they converge and diverge, which has become an urgent task in a digital world in which all media are reduced to “content.” Do moving-image media—film, television, video, animation, gaming—work in different ways aesthetically and emotionally than mediums such as painting, sculpture, comics, printmaking, and/or photography? How has the rise of cinema and television affected how novels are written? How do adaptations navigate the relationship between mediums, and what are the different ways in which one medium represents—or remediates—another medium within itself? By engaging with such questions, this course offers students the chance to explore the distinctive affordances of a range of media, and to think about the degree to which what we express is influenced by how we express it. Location (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)
FMST 278-01 21st Century Black Comedy as Resistance John Barker TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
This course examines Black comedic expression in the 21st century as a vital form of cultural critique and social commentary. We will study the work of high-profile comedians such as Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes, and Issa Rae, alongside emerging voices like Sam Jay, Evelyn From the Internets, and Black TikTok creators. Drawing on platforms ranging from Netflix, HBO, and Comedy Central to YouTube, TikTok, and Black Twitter, the course explores how Black comedians articulate issues related to race, gender, class, sexuality, and power. Comedy becomes both a mirror and a weapon—interrogating injustice, mocking oppression, and reclaiming narratives across mainstream stages and grassroots spaces alike. Location (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)
FMST 279-01 Global Black Media Matthew Omelsky TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
In this class we will study black-produced media from North America, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean – including Afro-Indigenous and Afro-Asian media – mostly from the mid-20th century to the present. We’ll explore how black media makers have used audio, visual, print, and digital forms to shape the ways we think about freedom, identity, community, and society. The materials we examine will largely come from audio media like music, radio, and podcasting; visual forms such as film, photography, and painting; digital media like gaming, online video series, and social media; and print media such as magazines and newspapers. Can we identify a relationship between the mid-20th century West African photography of Seydou Keïta and Childish Gambino’s more recent music videos, despite differences of time and place? Are there links between the influential 1940s and 50s BBC Radio series Caribbean Voices and Selly Thiam’s Afroqueer podcast? This is fundamentally a course about the relationship between blackness and media, studied comparatively across decades, continents, forms, and styles. Location (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
FMST 282-01 French Fantasy on Film Angeline Nies-Berger MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM
This course will explore surrealism, the marvelous, science fiction and horror in French cinema, from its very beginnings in the late 1880s to today. Whether tied to social themes (as illustrated by Louis Feuillade, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda and Mati Diop) or a poetic questioning of what lies beyond our perception (Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Jean Cocteau), the fantastic calls for redefinitions of reality. At the intersection of film theory, history, and narrative analysis, this course aims to cultivate students’ own daily sense of bewilderment while acquiring technical and historical knowledge of film. Conducted in English. Location (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)
FMST 288-01 Studies in a Director (Major Global Directors) Ur Staff M 4:50PM - 7:30PM
Intensive study of the body of work of a single or multiple film directors. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different. Location (M 4:50PM - 7:30PM)
FMST 354-01 The Politics of Beyoncé Stefanie Dunning T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course will examine the oeuvre of the singer Beyonce Knowles through a broad range of analyses that considers gender, race, nationalism, and class relative to her music and their accompanying filmic texts. We will intertextually connect Beyonce’s work to theories in Black feminist and ecological discourse, as well as think through American regionalisms. Among the texts we will engage are Lemonade, Renaissance, Cowboy Carter as well as related texts like Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, the writings of Audre Lorde, and the Combahee River Collective's work. Location (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
FMST 391-01 Independent Study Joel Burges 7:00PM - 7:00PM
This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department. Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Independent Study Registration form (https://secure1.rochester.edu/registrar/forms/independent-study-form.php) Location ( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)
FMST 392-01 Practicum – 7:00PM - 7:00PM
This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department. Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Independent Study Registration form (https://secure1.rochester.edu/registrar/forms/independent-study-form.php) Location ( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)
FMST 394-01 Internship Joel Burges 7:00PM - 7:00PM
This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department. Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Internship Registration form ( https://secure1.rochester.edu/registrar/forms/internship-registration-form.php) Location ( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)
FMST 442-01 Global Chinese Media Cultures – TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
How do people, through media, imagine belonging and intimacy across divides and difference? How does media history tell social history? This course examines vibrant and shifting media cultures from multiple Chinese worlds to consider how media histories closely participated in social histories and shaped dynamic modes of affective belonging. We discuss how media arts and infrastructures were developed from disparate sociohistorical conditions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Asian Americas and transnational diasporas, and what their convergences and divergences tell us about political and technological changes of the larger world. Moving across the landscapes of cinema, music, popular culture, digital platforms, and emerging media, we will consider the specificity of each medium and the ways that media crossings open up innovative ways of worlding beyond geopolitical borderlines. Taught in English. Location (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
FMST 482-01 French Fantasy on Film Angeline Nies-Berger MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM
This course will explore surrealism, the marvelous, science fiction and horror in French cinema, from its very beginnings in the late 1880s to today. Whether tied to social themes (as illustrated by Louis Feuillade, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda and Mati Diop) or a poetic questioning of what lies beyond our perception (Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Jean Cocteau), the fantastic calls for redefinitions of reality. At the intersection of film theory, history, and narrative analysis, this course aims to cultivate students’ own daily sense of bewilderment while acquiring technical and historical knowledge of film. Conducted in English. Location (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

Number	Title	Instructor	Time
Monday
FMST 288-01 Studies in a Director (Major Global Directors) Ur Staff
Intensive study of the body of work of a single or multiple film directors. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different.
Monday and Wednesday
FMST 153-01 Introduction to Sound Art Cary Adams
This course investigates the relationship between humans, machines, and urban environments by examining how the industrial history of the Rust Belt, particularly in Detroit, has shaped music and sound culture. Through practice-based research, students will conduct field recordings of their local urban areas and transform these sounds into musical compositions using non-screen-based hardware devices. Studio Art lab supply fee applied.
FMST 259-01 Adapting the Past in Japanese Media –
Adaptations surround us. In films, books, comics, TV, blogs, and radio shows, their popularity seem undeniable. What makes certain stories more adaptable than others? Why do we enjoy revisiting the same narratives over and over again? What motivates artists to craft adaptations of certain works? Is there such a thing as an original work? Are all works adaptations of a sort? In this course, we will focus on the way past narratives have been reclaimed, redefined, and transformed through the process of adaptation in Japanese media. Through this point of entry, students will be able to engage with stories that may or may not be familiar to them, and explore a variety of Japanese media such as novels, short stories, films, or manga. By becoming familiar with stories and their retellings through time and space, students will be able to grasp the historical and cultural events and trends that shaped and reframed these narratives. Starting with excerpts from early works such as The Kojiki, or The Tale of Genji, we will make out ways to most recent works dealing with events such as the triple disaster of Fukushima, to consider why authors and artists look back to the past to produce new works in the ever-changing present. Students will be asked to interact with primary works through English translations before considering and comparing them with their respective adaptations. Through this class, students will familiarize themselves with numerous kinds of Japanese media, from pre-modern texts to modern short stories and films. They will explore different types of adaptations and understand how and why they have been produced and how they were received. Finally, through producing an adaptation themselves, students will obtain first-hand experience of the process of adaptation. All readings will be in English, but previous knowledge of Japanese literature and media is a plus.
FMST 282-01 French Fantasy on Film Angeline Nies-Berger
This course will explore surrealism, the marvelous, science fiction and horror in French cinema, from its very beginnings in the late 1880s to today. Whether tied to social themes (as illustrated by Louis Feuillade, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda and Mati Diop) or a poetic questioning of what lies beyond our perception (Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Jean Cocteau), the fantastic calls for redefinitions of reality. At the intersection of film theory, history, and narrative analysis, this course aims to cultivate students’ own daily sense of bewilderment while acquiring technical and historical knowledge of film. Conducted in English.
FMST 482-01 French Fantasy on Film Angeline Nies-Berger
This course will explore surrealism, the marvelous, science fiction and horror in French cinema, from its very beginnings in the late 1880s to today. Whether tied to social themes (as illustrated by Louis Feuillade, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda and Mati Diop) or a poetic questioning of what lies beyond our perception (Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Jean Cocteau), the fantastic calls for redefinitions of reality. At the intersection of film theory, history, and narrative analysis, this course aims to cultivate students’ own daily sense of bewilderment while acquiring technical and historical knowledge of film. Conducted in English.
FMST 202-02 Language in Advertising Solveiga Armoskaite
The course examines the use advertisers make of language in selling their products and how it affects our perceptions of the product and ourselves. The emphasis in the course is on learning about the structure of language and how we can use it as a guide to observing and understanding the effectiveness of commercial messages.
FMST 161-01 Introduction to Video Art Pirooz Kalayeh
This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors.
FMST 221-01 Russian Cinema After the Fall Rita Safariants
This course examines developments and innovations in Russian cinema from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day as the Russian film industry struggled to move from a command to a market economy and adapt to new challenges. We will consider these films as works of cinematic art, as cultural/historical artifacts, tools of propaganda and nation building, aesthetic manifestations of political dissent, and (most importantly) how these ways of "thinking about film" relate to one another and reflect the cultural and ideological complexities of post-Soviet modernity. Spring 2024 subtheme: Depicting War. In English
FMST 230-01 On the Move: Ethnographic Film June Hwang
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?
FMST 205-01 New Media and Emerging Practice Andrew Salomone
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. Students will deploy introductory level techniques to create new works at the intersection of art, design, and technology. Not open to Seniors. Studio Art lab fee applied.
Tuesday
FMST 260-01 Topics in Screenwriting (Scriptwriting: TV Writing) Pirooz Kalayeh
Varrying topics in screenwriting and scriptwriting. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different. Please see public notes for specific section titles and course descriptions.
FMST 354-01 The Politics of Beyoncé Stefanie Dunning
This course will examine the oeuvre of the singer Beyonce Knowles through a broad range of analyses that considers gender, race, nationalism, and class relative to her music and their accompanying filmic texts. We will intertextually connect Beyonce’s work to theories in Black feminist and ecological discourse, as well as think through American regionalisms. Among the texts we will engage are Lemonade, Renaissance, Cowboy Carter as well as related texts like Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, the writings of Audre Lorde, and the Combahee River Collective's work.
Tuesday and Thursday
FMST 224-01 Film Studies (Disaster Cinema) Brady Fletcher
Topics in the study of film. Please see public notes for specific section titles and course descriptions. This topics course can be repeated (2 times) for additional credit as long as the special topic (section title) is different.
FMST 132-01 Intro to the Art of Film Jason Middleton
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.
FMST 239-01 Postwar Italian Directors: Fellini, Antonioni, Cavani Andrew Korn
This course explores three of Italy’s most prominent post-WWII 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 thematic and stylistic 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; and 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.
FMST 263-01 Comparative Media Ur Staff
What can we learn from comparing different mediums to one another? In this course, we will examine two or more mediums to understand how they converge and diverge, which has become an urgent task in a digital world in which all media are reduced to “content.” Do moving-image media—film, television, video, animation, gaming—work in different ways aesthetically and emotionally than mediums such as painting, sculpture, comics, printmaking, and/or photography? How has the rise of cinema and television affected how novels are written? How do adaptations navigate the relationship between mediums, and what are the different ways in which one medium represents—or remediates—another medium within itself? By engaging with such questions, this course offers students the chance to explore the distinctive affordances of a range of media, and to think about the degree to which what we express is influenced by how we express it.
FMST 278-01 21st Century Black Comedy as Resistance John Barker
This course examines Black comedic expression in the 21st century as a vital form of cultural critique and social commentary. We will study the work of high-profile comedians such as Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes, and Issa Rae, alongside emerging voices like Sam Jay, Evelyn From the Internets, and Black TikTok creators. Drawing on platforms ranging from Netflix, HBO, and Comedy Central to YouTube, TikTok, and Black Twitter, the course explores how Black comedians articulate issues related to race, gender, class, sexuality, and power. Comedy becomes both a mirror and a weapon—interrogating injustice, mocking oppression, and reclaiming narratives across mainstream stages and grassroots spaces alike.
FMST 242-01 Global Chinese Media Cultures –
How do people, through media, imagine belonging and intimacy across divides and difference? How does media history tell social history? This course examines vibrant and shifting media cultures from multiple Chinese worlds to consider how media histories closely participated in social histories and shaped dynamic modes of affective belonging. We discuss how media arts and infrastructures were developed from disparate sociohistorical conditions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Asian Americas and transnational diasporas, and what their convergences and divergences tell us about political and technological changes of the larger world. Moving across the landscapes of cinema, music, popular culture, digital platforms, and emerging media, we will consider the specificity of each medium and the ways that media crossings open up innovative ways of worlding beyond geopolitical borderlines. Taught in English.
FMST 279-01 Global Black Media Matthew Omelsky
In this class we will study black-produced media from North America, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean – including Afro-Indigenous and Afro-Asian media – mostly from the mid-20th century to the present. We’ll explore how black media makers have used audio, visual, print, and digital forms to shape the ways we think about freedom, identity, community, and society. The materials we examine will largely come from audio media like music, radio, and podcasting; visual forms such as film, photography, and painting; digital media like gaming, online video series, and social media; and print media such as magazines and newspapers. Can we identify a relationship between the mid-20th century West African photography of Seydou Keïta and Childish Gambino’s more recent music videos, despite differences of time and place? Are there links between the influential 1940s and 50s BBC Radio series Caribbean Voices and Selly Thiam’s Afroqueer podcast? This is fundamentally a course about the relationship between blackness and media, studied comparatively across decades, continents, forms, and styles.
FMST 442-01 Global Chinese Media Cultures –
How do people, through media, imagine belonging and intimacy across divides and difference? How does media history tell social history? This course examines vibrant and shifting media cultures from multiple Chinese worlds to consider how media histories closely participated in social histories and shaped dynamic modes of affective belonging. We discuss how media arts and infrastructures were developed from disparate sociohistorical conditions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Asian Americas and transnational diasporas, and what their convergences and divergences tell us about political and technological changes of the larger world. Moving across the landscapes of cinema, music, popular culture, digital platforms, and emerging media, we will consider the specificity of each medium and the ways that media crossings open up innovative ways of worlding beyond geopolitical borderlines. Taught in English.
FMST 210-01 After the Quake: Introduction to Disaster Literature and Cinema in Japan Lin Meng Walsh
This course introduces students to the rich body of disaster literature and cinema in Japan. We will explore how Japanese artists creatively reflected on themes of loss, grief, trauma, survival, and healing; we will critically analyze how disaster writings and films probe the issues of socio-political infrastructure as well as human pain and strength. Described as events that cause “the breach of collective expectations in institutions and practices that make everyday life work” (Curato and Corpus Ong 2015), the “disasters” we encounter in this class include both natural and human-generated calamities such as fire, earthquake, war, atomic bombing, and epidemic. Also covered in this class are writings on “imagined disasters” as found in science fiction and dystopian fantasy (for example, the 1973 novel Japan Sinks by Komatsu Sakyō and its parody “The World Sinks Except Japan” by Tsutsui Yasutaka). All readings will be in English; knowledge of Japanese language is welcome but not required
FMST 216-01 Hispanic Mediascapes in the 21st Century –
This upper level course will give students an overview of cultural topics represented in the Hispanic media beginning in the 21st century to the present. Students will engage with critical issues ranging from environmental studies to technology and Al using as a variety of theoretical lenses to explore those contested topics. The selected films will be contextualized by exploring the social, historical and cultural panoramas that characterize each of the respective films upon their release. In addition, students will learn to analyze film and develop a vocabulary to speak about film theory and practice which they will use in the lectures, presentations, and their written work. Finally, we will discuss the evolving media industry in Latin America and Spain and the future of Hispanic media production as new technologies are revolutionizing the trade. Taught in English.
FMST 212-01 Snakes and Robots: The Non-Human in East Asian Literature and Media Lin Meng Walsh
In Monster Theory, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen defines “the monster” as “an embodiment of difference, a breaker of category, and a resistant Other known only through process and movement” (1996: x). In this class, we look at various forms of literary monsters—animals, robots, plants, and ghosts conjured by the human mind. Through an in-depth engagement with creative works by Pu Songling, Tezuka Osamu, Han Kang, and others, we explore how writers and artists have attempted to move closer to an understanding of humanity by ceaselessly reimagining the non-human. Conducted in English.
Thursday
FMST 203-01 The Video Essay and Personal Storytelling Pirooz Kalayeh
Over the past decade, the video essay has become a digital form that increasingly offers makers a critical and creative means of self-expression. In this course, you will learn how to make a video essay, focusing on personal storytelling through videographic production. Working with a media object that is personally meaningful to you—ranging from a film or television series to a video game or literary text—you will develop the aesthetic and technical skills needed to produce your own video essay by the end of the semester. While we will read theoretical work on the video essay, watch video essays by talented makers, and do some reflective writing, the course is primarily a media production workshop. The first half of the semester will be devoted to a series of videographic exercises that let you develop proficiency in Adobe Premiere Pro through close engagement with your media object. The second half of the semester will be devoted to you making a full-length video essay that uses that media object to tell a personal story. No prior skill with Adobe Premiere Pro or any other non-linear editing software is required, though it is welcome.