REQUIREMENTS
CINE 101.401 - Film History
Cross-listed: ENGL 091; ARTH 108
This course is an introduction to the history of cinema from 1895 to the present. In demonstrating how history energizes and complicates the movies, we will examine numerous film cultures and historical periods, including early short films from Europe and the US, Hollywood silent cinema, Italian neo-realism, the French New Wave, New German Cinema, recent Iranian and Taiwanese cinema, and a variety of other film movements from different historical epochs and cultures. Our aim is to establish a broad historical and global foundation for the understanding of film as a complex exchange between art, technology, politics, and economics. Screenings are mandatory.
TR 3:00 - 4:30 | FBH 401
DECHERNEY, Peter
CINE 102.601 - Film Analysis and Methods
Cross-listed: ENGL 092; ARTH 109
This course is an introduction to the analysis of film as both a textual practice and a cultural practice. We will examine a variety of films—from Fritz Lang's M (1931) to Julia Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991)--in order to demonstrate the tools and skills of "close reading." We will concentrate on those specifically filmic features of the movies, such as mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound strategies, as well as those larger organizational forms, such as narrative and non-narrative structures and movie genres. Because our responses to the movies always extend beyond the film frame, we will additionally do "close readings" of the complex business of film distribution, promotion, and exhibition to show how the less visible machinery of the movie business also shapes our understanding and enjoyment of particular films. Along the way, we will discuss some of the most influential and productive critical schools of thought informing film analysis today, including realism, auteurism, feminism, postmodernism, and others.
TR 5:00 - 8:00 | ANNS 111
MAZAJ, Meta
CINE 498.301 - Cinema Studies Seminar (Open only to Cinema Studies Graduating Majors)
As a capstone course for the major, this seminar will allow students to develop a research project in cinema studies. A single faculty member will oversee the seminar, but each student will additionally work in consultation with a faculty advisor from the Cinema Studies Faculty.
W 2:00 - 5:00 | FBH 244
BECKMAN, Karen
PRIMARY FILM COURSES
CINE 109.401 - Images of Asian-American in the Media
Cross-listed: ASAM 109; SOCI 109
This course will examine contemporary popular images of Asian Americans in the US media, with a specific focus on popular film and television. We will explore socio-cultural, economic, and political issues that impact and affect creative and business decisions with regard to East and South Asian Americans, as well as discuss the role and influence of media in society with specific regard to issues of representation as they pertain to ethnicity, gender, race, and sexuality.
M 9:00 - 11:00 | COLL 200
PENN, Kal (Kalpen Modi)
For information about enrolling in this class, please consult ASAM webpage: <http://asam.sas.upenn.edu/>.
CINE 115.601 - Study of an Author: Woody Allen
Cross-listed: ENGL 292
This course will explore the work of Woody Allen, a major figure in American humor and one of our most influential, controversial, and prolific filmmakers. A pioneer of the American personal film, Allen made movies steeped in film history, technically masterful, intellectually ambitious and, despite all this, popular. Exploring European art cinema, satirizing American culture, transforming a genre, or criticizing himself, Allen invariably smartened whatever genre he focused upon, creating great roles for women, reinventing romantic comedy and returning resonance to the crime story—what he did with the musical we’ll talk about some other time. Taking on everyday concerns, particularly work and sex, his films point up how these entwine or neglect the meaning of life, love, and death, the value of art, the silence of God. Our course will likely view twelve of his films, including Love and Death, Annie Hall, Stardust Memories, Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo, and Match Point. Coursework includes film screenings, readings, short weekly writings, and a collaborative filmmaking project. Critical Writing in the Major course (CWIM).
W 5:30 - 8:30 | LOGN 392
ROSS, Valerie
CINE 140.401 - Italian Comic Films
Cross-listed: ITAL 100
In this course we will explore a popular genre in Italian cinema whose roots date back to the Commedia dell’Arte theatrical tradition. We will investigate the portrait of Italian society expressed through comic films, particularly in the golden age of Commedia all’Italiana, between the late Fifties and the early Seventies, with the tragicomic plots of Monicelli’s, Comencini’s, Risi’s and Germi’s films used as a powerful commentary on the social malaise of the Italian economic miracle. We will then approach the latest aspects of the genre, through the contributions of talented comic actors and/or directors such as Nichetti, Benigni, Troisi, Moretti, Salvatores, Virzì and Soldini. The course will also discuss theories of comedy with reference to Aristotle, Freud, Bergson and Bakhtin among others.
MWF 1:00 - 2:00 | WILL 204
BENINI, Stefania
CINE 150.401 - Television Studies
Cross-listed: ENGL 078
As a complex cultural product, television lends itself to a variety of critical approaches that build-on, parallel, or depart from film studies. This introductory course in television studies begins with an overview of the medium’s history and explores how technical and industrial changes correspond to developing conventions of genre, programming, and aesthetics. Along the way, we analyze key concepts and theoretical debates that shaped the field. In particular, we will focus on approaches to textual analysis in combination with industry research, and critical engagements with the political, social and cultural dimensions of television as popular culture.
TR 10:30 - 12:00 | FBH 401
BODDY, William
CINE 201.401 - Cinema, Realism, and Social Justice: Social Problem Film Genre and Politics
Cross-listed: ENGL 291
Throughout the history of the cinema, the medium has held—simultaneously—the potential to be a means of promoting fantasy and of creating a palpably powerful representation of reality. How and when does the cinema become a part of the broader discourse on social problems? This course will use the “Social Problem film” genre to discuss those moments in which film most directly represents politics and questions of social justice. The course will also address other films that use alternative strategies for representing social problems. It will ask students to think about the construction of the social problem and its evasions in cinematic material. It will also address questions of censorship and reception pertaining to these films: when and where is their representation deemed “too real” for the screen and therefore censored? What does reception tell us about the phenomenology of this particular set of films? (When) do they incite to social action?
W 2:00 - 5:00 | MEYH B4
SCOTT, Ellen
CINE 202.401 - The Cinema of the Balkans
Cross-listed: ENGL 292; ARTH 290; SLAV 212
This course will be a study of Balkan cinema, with a focus on a wide range and variety of films that were made in response to the 1990s crisis in the Balkans. While the Balkans may be familiar as one of Hollywood’s favorite fantasy nightmares—the bloodthirsty Transylvanian count and vampire, Vlad Tepes-Dracula, or Cat People’s horrific historical Serbs who morphed into ferocious black panthers now living in the heart of Manhattan—Balkan cinema is an often overlooked but one of the richest and most significant cinemas of Europe today. While tracing the history of Balkan cinema, the main focus of the course will be on films made during and after the Balkan war in the 1990s. by filmmakers such Milcho Manchevski, EmirKusturica, Srdjan Dragojevic, Goran Peskaljevic, and Danis Tanovic. These directors achieved great success in their native countries as well as abroad, and started appearing regularly at all major international film festivals. As such they not only mark a significant moment in thinking about the nation but show how a nation has come to depend on the persuasive power of cinema to articulate itself. As we recognize the difficulties in asserting Balkan culture as a unified one, the aim of the course will be to explore an astonishing thematic and stylistic consistency in the cinematic output of the Balkan region. Looking at these shared issues—the turbulent history and volatile politics, a semi-Orientalist positioning sometimes seen as marginality and sometimes as a bridge between East and West, encounters between Christianity and Islam, a legacy of patriarchy and economic dependency--we will examine how cinema of the Balkans testifies to a specific artistic sensibility that comes from a shared socio-cultural space.
TR 9:00 - 10:30 | FBH 201
MAZAJ, Meta
CINE 202.402 - American Film Criticism
Cross-listed: ENGL 292
In our age of bloggers, fansites, and media conglomeration, the art of film criticism and the status of the film critic is often assumed to be in crisis. This class will look back at the history of American film criticism--from pioneers like James Agee to giants like Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Stanley Kaufmann and Molly Haskell to contemporary voices like J. Hoberman, Armond White, Roger Ebert, AO Scott, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Manohla Dargis. We will do so through analysis of the films that sparked the inspiration and sometimes ire of these writers, and led them to both define and increasingly defend their role as arbiters of quality and importance; possible objects of study will include classics like "The Gold Rush," "The Passion of Joan of Arc," "Citizen Kane," "Jules and Jim," "Double Indemnity," "L'Avventura," "Bonnie and Clyde," "2001: A Space Odyssey," and "The Wild Bunch," plus contemporary sources of debate including "A History of Violence," "Sideways," "Crash" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." Writings will include short responses to the films and readings and two longer papers.
TR 3:00 - 4:30 | FBH 231
DONOVAN, Christopher
CINE 205.401 - Visions of Rome in Italian and American Cinema
Cross-listed: CLST 206
An overview of cinematic responses to the idea of Rome, ancient and modern, city and empire, place and idea, from the silent era to the present day. The emphasis will be on how successive visions of Rome reflect evolving political and social conditions on both sides of the Atlantic and the relative positions of the American and Italian film industries within the world market. Specific topics to be explored include the mutually-defining relationship between Italian and American society as reflected in the cinematic art, the dialectic between conceptions of antiquity and modernity, and the place of reception studies in approaches to both classical and contemporary material. Screenings of works by Federico Fellini, Cecil B. DeMille, William Wyler, Roberto Rossellini and other major directors.
MW 1:00 - 2:00 | LOGN 402
FARRELL, Joseph
CINE 232.402 - Brazil : History and Culture Throughout Film (OFFERED IN SPANISH)
Cross-listed: SPAN 223; PRTG 240
This seminar will explore Brazilian film production, both documentary and full-feature, in order to point out essential aspects of the history and culture of Brazil. The films will be used as an overture for the discussion of topics such as the colonization of Brazil (Desmundo, Hans Staden, Carlota Joaquina a Princesa do Brasil), the complex relations between Indigenous peoples, Africans and Europeans in Brazil (Quilombo, Xica da Silva, Brava Gente Brasileira), the struggles during the establishment of the Brazilian nation (A Guerra de Canudos, Netto Perde Sua Alma), and the relation between Brazil and its Hispanic neighbors (Anahy de las Misiones, A Guerra do Brasil).
TR 3:00 - 4:30 | WILL 421
FLORES, Tito
CINE 240.401 - Italian History on Screen
Cross-listed: ITAL 204
Italian civilization in its encyclopedic sweep, from ancient Rome to the contemporary scene, will be studied through the historian’s eye and the film maker’s lens. How does history “change” depending on time, place, and medium of our retrospective? How do movies, with their stories of military conquests, cultural heroes, romantic intrigue and scandal, differ from accounts in the annals of history? Do directors from the other cultures see it differently from natives? Are there stereotypes? Readings (Machiavelli’s Prince, modern historical texts) will be paired with a range of film types (the spectacle with a cast of thousands, costume drama, Neorealist slice-of-life, political exposè, documentary recreation) focused on successive periods: the Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Unification, Turn of the Century, Fascist era, World War II, post-war years, and Italy today. Students will view one film per week; supplementary clips will be shown by the professor in class for comparison.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | VANP FLMCR
KIRKHAM, Victoria
CINE 265.401 - Russian and Eastern European Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 165; SLAV 165
The purpose of this course is to present the Russian and East European contribution to world cinema in terms of film theory, experimentation with the cinematic language, and social and political reflex. We discuss major themes and issues such as: the invention of montage, the means of visual propaganda and the cinematic component to the communist cultural revolutions, party ideology and practices of social-engineering, cinematic response to the emergence of the totalitarian state in Russia and its subsequent installation in Eastern Europe after World War II; repression, resistance and conformity under such a system; legal and illegal desires; the nature of the authoritarian personality, the mind and the body of the homo sovieticos; sexual and political transgression; treason and disgrace; public degradation and individual redemption; the profane and the sublime ends of human suffering and humiliation; the unmasking of the official "truth" as a general lie.
MW 2:00 - 3:30 | FBH 401
TODOROV, Vlad
CINE 265.402 - Russian History in Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 275
This course draws on the fictional, drama and cinematic representation of the Russian history based on Russian as well as non Russian sources and interpretations. The analysis targets major modes of imagining, such as narrating, showing and reenacting historical events, personae and epochs justified by different, historically mutating ideological postulates and forms of national self-consciousness. Common stereotypes of picturing Russia from "foreign" perspectives draw special attention. The discussion involves the following themes and outstanding figures: the mighty autocrats Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great; the tragic ruler Boris Godunov; the brazen rebel and royal impostor Pugachov; the notorious Rasputin, his uncanny powers, sex-appeal, and court machinations; Lenin and the October Revolution; images of war; the times of construction and the times of collapse of the Soviet Colossus.
MW 3:30 - 5:00 | VANP FLMCR
TODOROV, Vlad
CINE 282.401 - Native American Films
Cross-listed: ENGL 282; ANTH 282
This course will engage a wide variety of “media” including film, documentaries, web-based digital videos, and visits from an Ojibwe and Cherokee storyteller. These works will be examined from the perspective of cinema studies, literature, history, and anthropology. We will begin by tracing the historical origins of pervasive stereotypes that continue to haunt hollywood films. The class will, however, move far beyond such negative images to detailed discussions of how Native Americans have taken over the means of production to give radically new meanings to the phrase “Native American Films.” The Ojibwe and Cherokee storytellers, for example, will discuss on-going projects in partnership with Penn to utilize digital technology to retell tribal histories from a Native American perspective. Films will cover a wide range of history from the silent film The Vanishing American (1925) to notable westerns like John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). The modern turn to a more sympathetic treatment of Native American culture will be shown in Little Big Man (1970). The next stage of development, wherein Native actors and directors gained a greater degree of creative control, will be examined in films like Powwow Highway (1989) and Smoke Signals (1998). The incorporation of indigenous storytelling techniques and its international scope will be exhibited in Fast Runner (2002) and Whale Rider (2003). Native American documentaries and web-based projects will conclude the semester, with the work of Penn students and of Digital Partnerships with Native American Communities being featured. Students will be asked to write one 5 page paper and two 7-10 page papers. Creativity will be strongly encouraged, such that “papers” may include multi-media web-based presentations, screenplays or analytical essays.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | FBH 222
POWELL, Timothy
CINE 296.401 - Television in the 1950's
Cross-listed: ENGL 295
This course will examine the US television industry during the decade of its most dynamic growth and change, when the business practices, regulatory structures, and program forms of TV’s network era were established. The course will explore the relationship of the early TV industry to the Hollywood studios, American advertising, and the consumer electronics industry, and analyze television’s position in the wider political and cultural controversies of the time. The aesthetic and institutional legacies of 1950s television in the contemporary post-network era of TV will also be addressed.
TR 1:30 - 3:00 | FBH 201
BODDY, William
CINE 365.601 - National and Ethnic Conlicts in Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 430
This course studies the cinematic representation of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, nationalistic doctrines, and genocidal policies. The focus is on the violent developments that took place in Russia and on the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were conditioned by the new geopolitical dynamics that the fall of communism had already created. We study media broadcasts, documentaries, feature films representing the Eastern, as well as the Western perspective. The films include masterpieces such as “Time of the Gypsies”, "Underground", "Prisoner of the Mountains", "Before the Rain", "Behind Enemy Lines", and others.
M 5:30 - 8:30 | WILL 205
TODOROV, Vlad
CINE 392.401 - Cinema and Photography
Cross-listed: ARTH 489; ENGL 392
This course will focus on the complex relationship between film and photography. As we consider these two hybrid media in relation to each other, we will focus on questions of temporality, indexicality, truth, narrative, memory, movement and history. As we read histories and theories of the two media from the 19th century through to the present day, and examine specific still images and films, we will pay particular attention to the question of why and when filmmakers choose to allow the stasis of the photograph to disrupt cinema's illusion of movement. Weekly film screenings will include works by Chris Marker, Michelangelo Antonioni, Michael Snow, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Dariusz Jablonski and Rebecca Baron. Requirements: attendance at screenings, student presentations, class participation, and periodic short writing assignments in preparation for a final research paper.
R 1:30 - 4:30 | FBH 222
BECKMAN, Karen
INTERDISCIPLINARY FILM COURSES
CINE 055.401 - Monsters of Japan: Weird Creatures in Legend, Literature and Film
Cross-listed: EALC 055
A look at monstrous beasts and other strange creatures in Japanese history, literature, mythology and film. From the eight-headed Orochi described in the 8th century Kojiki to the cute “pocket monsters” popular in anime of the 1990’s, we will look at many strange creatures, focusing most on the “King of the Monsters,” Godzilla, and his many subjects in the Toho films of the last half-century. The course will be paralleled by a (required) film series on Tuesday nights.
TR 3:00 - 4:30 | WILL 214
CHANCE, Frank
CINE 085.401 - Medicine in Literature and Film, 1850-Present
Cross-listed: ENGL 085
What is it like to live with a serious illness? How have laypersons’ cultural understandings of sickness and health changed over time? And how do historical images, literary accounts, and cinematic representations of doctors, nurses, and sick people reveal and affect conventional assumptions about disease and medical authority? This course offers a comprehensive study of significant changes and continuities in the history of 19th- and 20th-century medicine, alongside works of literature and film that exemplify the shifting notions of the doctor and sickness in the Western medical tradition. In particular, we will focus on fictional sources (poetry, short stories, novels, and films) as well as on nonfictional accounts (journals, diaries, and documentaries) that explore the emotional and somatic aspects of “conditions” such as hysteria, cancer, syphilis, homosexuality, and madness. As a transhistorical study of Western medicine from the innovations of Paris Medicine through the present, we will be concerned with the power of literary and cinematic narratives to bring coherence and meaning to lives at moments of great physical and emotional crisis. Inspired by recent historiographical trends to study the history of medicine from the bottom up, this course moves away from a methodology that emphasizes the “great men of science” to one that centers on the concerns of sick persons. This semester, we will read works of literature by authors such as Anton Chekhov, Emily Dickinson, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, Sylvia Plath, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Additionally, we will watch numerous films including Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie, Derek Jarman’s Blue, Todd Haynes’s Safe and Superstar, Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, and documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies and Hospital. In conjunction with these literary and cinematic texts, we will study contemporaneous medical topics, such as the history of psychoanalysis, advancements in anesthesia, the elevation of the professional surgeon, the pathology of sexual deviances, the impact of the AIDS/HIV pandemic, and the clinical gaze. Assignments will include two short papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
TR 4:30 - 6:00 | FBH 201
WAHLERT, Lance
CINE 103.602 - Bad Boys and Dangerous Dames: Thriller, Detective Novels, and Film Noir
Cross-listed: ENGL 103
Often featuring lone heroes chasing criminals through a crowded city, crime fiction of the thirties captured the cultural anxieties wrought by urban industrialism and the Great Depression. By the forties, many of these texts were adapted into classic noir films that captured a war, and later postwar, sensibility. This course begins with an examination of the thrillers and detective novels of the thirties and then traces their adaptation into film noir. While developing close readings of these texts and films, we will also contextualize these works with secondary readings that offer a range of different perspectives from historical, to formalist, to feminist. Texts and corresponding films include: Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, James Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, Graham Greene’s A Gun for Sale and the film adaptation A Gun for Hire, and Greene’s The Third Man. Students will be responsible for Blackboard postings, two short papers and a longer final paper.
W 5:00 - 8:00 | MEYH B4
SREBRO, Nancy
CINE 104.401 - Monsters in Film and Literature
Cross-listed: ENGL 104; COML 104
Why do monsters have such lasting popular appeal in film and literature? From medieval dragons to giant alien cars, monsters reveal our fascination with the supernatural and the grotesque, with scientific experimentation and the boundaries of what it means to be human. Each era of history has its own way of representing the unknown and sublimating its deep-seated fears of contamination and invasion—often through the figure of the monster. In this course we will study films featuring a wide assortment of monsters and the literature that inspires and reproduces them across a range of genres, cultures, and periods. Films may include: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Fly, 28 Weeks Later, The Elephant Man, The Host. Authors may include: Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.P. Lovecraft, and Octavia Butler.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | FBH 401
YANG, Chi-ming
CINE 105.601 - Religion in Film and Literature
Cross-listed: RELS 105
Introduction to different ways religion is represented in film. Emphasis is on religious themes but some attention will also be given to cinematic devices and strategies. Although most films studied will deal with only one of the major historical religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the course will include at least two of the traditions.
M 6:00 - 9:00 | WILL 214
DERAKHSHANI, Tirdad
CINE 112.401 - Literature and Film in the Age of Globalization
Cross-listed: ENGL 102; COML 245
This is an introductory course about “world fictions” (both literary and cinematic) as they have been made possible by an increasingly global world. We will look at some of the most exciting and acclaimed fiction and film produced in Europe, the US, Africa and Asia (all in English). How are these stories shaped by globalization? In turn, what do such fictions tell us about globalization, its histories, and its contemporary forms?
Our syllabus will include the following short novels: The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon, The Quiet American by Graham Greene, The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh; Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo, Small Island by Andrea Levy, and My Year in Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki. We will also read one play: Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan.
Films examined will be The Constant Gardener (Fernando Mereilles), Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears); My Son the Fanatic (Hanif Kureishi); In This World (Michael Winterbottom) and Life and Debt (Stephanie Black). Work for this class will include several quizzes, and two short papers, one of which will be revised for a final paper.
No previous study of literature or film is required or expected. This class satisfies the General Requirement for Arts and Letters.
TR 1:30 - 2:30 plus recitations on F 10:00-11:00 or 11:00-12:00 | FBH 401
LOOMBA, Ania
CINE 125.401 - Adultery Novel in Film and Literature
Cross-listed: RUSS 125; COML 127; GSOC 125
The course examines a series of 19C and 20C novels (and a few short stories) about adultery, film adaptations of several of these novels, and several adultery films in their own right. Our reading will teach us about novelistic traditions of the period in question, about the relationship of Russian literature to the European models to which it responded. about adaptation and the implications of filmic vs. literary representation. Course readings include: Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and other works. Films include: Frears' Dangerous Liaisons, Vadim's Dangerous Liaisons, Nichols' The Graduate, Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes, and others. Students will apply various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution, Freudian/ Psychoanalytic interpretations of family life and transgressive sexuality, and Feminist work on the construction of gender.
TR 10:30 - 12:00 | EDUC 203
PLATT, Kevin
CINE 137.601 - Introduction to Music and Sound in Cinema
In this course we will investigate the relationship between all aspects of film sound (music, voices, noise) and the moving image in a variety of films ranging from the “silent” era to the present. We will consider how film sound has evolved since the birth of the “talking” picture in 1927. What is the traditional role of sound in a film, and how have filmmakers sometimes departed from the usual practice? Through our analyses we will challenge the assumption that film is primarily a visual medium. Time permitting, we will also experiment with adding our own sound to pre-existing video.
W 6:00 - 9:00 | FBH 15
COPENHAFER, David
CINE 215.401 - Global Fiction and Film
Cross-listed: SAST 212; ASAM 212
The spread of globalization, or the acceleration of transportation and information technologies, alters our notions of time and space. Described variously as colonial, postcolonial, and global, recent film and literature from South Asia suggest models for understanding the following processes: imperialism, nationalism, displacement, hybridity, migrancy, and travel. The resulting increase in the traffic in texts re-defines genres, canons, high/low cultures, as well as popular and mass culture. The new representations and circulations of fictions, films, and adaptations produce novel ways of thinking about community, borders, and belonging. While the class will focus on South Asian texts, we will draw on film, literature, and theoretical frameworks from other contexts to consider the licenses and limits of comparison for this study.
R 5:00 - 8:00 | NEGB 121
MAJITHIA, Sheetal
CINE 220.401 - Modern Chinese Literature and Film
Cross-listed: EALC 125
This course serves as a thematic introduction to modern Chinese literature and cinema in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and transnational Chinese communities from the late imperial period through the entire twentieth century to the present. By discussing a wide range of key literary and filmic texts, this class looks into major issues and discourses in China’s pursuit of modernization: enlightenment and revolution, politics and aesthetics, sentimental education and nationalism, historical trauma and violence, gender and sexuality, social hygiene and body politics, diaspora and displacement, youth sub-culture and urban imagination.
MW 11:00 - 12:30 | STIT B26
WANG, Xiaojue
CINE 231.401 - Anthropology and the Cinema
Cross-listed: ANTH 231
While it has traditionally studied the expressive behaviors of many other cultures around the globe, American anthropology has rarely used its tools of cultural analysis to look its own storytelling, especially as seen in mass-market Hollywood movies. This course will apply textual and contextual analysis, cross-cultural comparisons, mythological and symbolic approaches, and cognitive, linguistic and discourse analysis to look at the form, content and effects of popular movies. This semester, the last segment of the course will focus on movies about baseball and will consider issues of national identity, play and games, and baseball as myth and magic. Baseball films considered will include The Natural, Fields of Dreams, Pride of the Yankees, Eight Men Out, The Rookie, Angels in the Outfield, and The Jackie Robinson Story.
TR 10:30 - 12:00 | MUSE B17
KRASNIEWICZ, Louise
CINE 281.401 - African-American Modernism
Cross-listed: ENGL 281; AFRC 281
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TR 12:00 - 1:30 | FBH 322
DAVIS, Thadious
CINE 308.401 - Burden of Representation
Cross-listed: ENGL 390; GSOC 390
This is an interdisciplinary seminar that explores the representation of difference through film, literature, photography, social science, medicine, and literature. The course considers how stigma attaches to particular bodies and the modern regimes of representation that organize the perception of these figures. Topics that will guide our discussion include the history of the human sciences, embodiment and stigma, the concept of deviance, the dynamics of objectification, colonial modernity, the skin as signifier of difference, and poverty and shame. Texts may include work by Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Georges Caghuilhem, Frantz Fanon, W.E.B. Du Bois, Daphne Brooks, Irving Zola, John Tagg, Rosemary Garland Thomson, Howard Becker, Kenji Yoshino, Roderick Ferguson, Susan Seizer, Charles Baudelaire, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Jean Genet, and others. We will also be analyzing films by Douglas Sirk, Agnes Varda, Frederick Wiseman, Lars von Trier, Forugh Farrokhzad, and others. Some short writing assignments, a class presentation, and a final seminar paper.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | FBH 201
LOVE, Heather
CINE 329.401 - Israeli Literature and Film: The Many Voices of Israel
Cross-listed: NELC 159; COML 282; JWST 102
This course listens and responds to Israeli literary and cinematic expressions of “others,” such as new immigrants, women, Arabs, gays, orthodox Jews, first and second generations of Holocaust survivors, and those of Middle Eastern descent. The Zionist meta-narrative that dominated Israeli literature and film from its inception ignored or suppressed their varied voices until the late 20th century. Initially, authors and directors were predominantly Israeli-born (or educated), Ashkenazi (of European descent) men who tackled the nationalistic, territory- based aspirations of the people. Now that the “periphery” has invaded the “center,” a cacophony of voices replaces the mainstream ideological search for a Zionist utopia. We will analyze and examine how postmodernist and subversive writers and filmmakers use the different languages of film, prose and poetry to capture the outsider’s experience. There will be 5 film screenings. Grades are based on film response papers; one 6 page term paper; final; and class participation. The content of this course change from year to year, and therefore, students may take it for credit more than once. Fulfills Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) and Cross Cultural Analysis – Class of ’10 and after.
TR 1:30 - 3:00 | FBH 231
GOLD, Nili
CINE 340.401 - Italian Mothers in Literature and Film (OFFERED IN ITALIAN)
Cross-listed: ITAL 380
Topics vary, covering a range of genres (novel, poetry, theater, film) and authors (Pirandello, D’Annunzio, Svevo, Moravia, Morante, Pasolini, Eco, Montale, Fo, etc.)
M 2:00 - 5:00 | FBH 323
FINOTTI, Fabio
CINE 350.301 - Spanish Post-Civil War Through Literature & Film (OFFERED IN SPANISH)
Cross-listed: SPAN 386.301
In this course, we will study the way authors, playwrights and filmmakers portray Spanish society during the first two decades after the Civil War. When dealing with works created during the years of Franco’s dictatorship, we will examine the role and the influence censorship had on the making of such works. Additionally, we will analyze the different approach post-Franco authors and filmmakers had to the same era when they were not restricted by the censors. We will study works by Camilo José Cela, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Alfonso Sastre, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Carlos Saura and Luis García Berlanga, among others.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | WILL 6
FERNÁDEZ, Francisco
CINE 350.302 - Mad Women in Hispanic Literature and Film (OFFERED IN SPANISH)
Cross-listed: SPAN 386.302
In this course we shall explore the theme of the madwoman in contemporary Hispanic fiction and film. Our goal is to analyze the representation and exploitation of women suffering from mental illnesses in a multiplicity of genres ranging from historical novels and fantastic literature to detective stories and horror films. We will pay special attention to the variety of political and ideological agendas with which the female icon of “la loca” has been infused. Works and films include: Del amor y otros demonios by Gabriel García Márquez, Delirio by Laura Restrepo, Hipnos by Javier Azpeitia, El fin de la locura by Jorge Volpi, Alas de mariposa by Juanma Bajo Ulloa, and Juana la Loca by Vicente Aranda. Additional readings from a wide range of disciplines (feminism, literary and film theory, psychology and psychoanalysis) will enhance our understanding of these texts and films.
MWF 11:00 - 12:00 | WILL 723
GARCÍA-SERRANO, Victoria
CINE 350.401 - Literature and Film in Spain and Latin America (OFFERED IN SPANISH)
Cross-listed: SPAN 396; LALS 397
This course aims to think together Spanish and Latin American literature and film by examining crises of identity and the “awakenings” they provoke. Beginning with the events surrounding the War of 1898 and ending a century later, we will study individual and social moments of existential, political, emotional, and other crises, addressing themes such as pan-latinism, (post)colonialism, nation, race, gender, and war. We will consider not only the ways in which crisis is represented in poetry, essays, novels, and films, but also the role the works themselves play in reshaping common perceptions of social, political, and psychological norms. Possible authors and directors to be discussed include Unamuno, Ortega, Neruda, Bombal, Cela, Guillén, Borges, Valenzuela, Pizarnik, Gutiérrez Alea, and Guillermo del Toro.
MWF 12:00 - 1:00 | FBH 138
GENTIC, Tania
CINE 352.401 - The Devil's Pact in Literature, Music and Film
Cross-listed: GRMN 256; COML 241; RELS 236
For centuries the pact with the devil has signified humankind's desire to surpass the limits of human knowledge and power. From the age of Martin Luther to the time of Mick Jagger, from Marlowe and Goethe to key Hollywood films, the legend of the devil's pact continues to be useful for exploring our fascination with forbidden powers.
MW 1:00 - 2:00 | ANNS 110
RICHTER, Simon
CINE 365.401 - Russian History in Animation (OFFERED IN RUSSIAN)
Cross-listed: RUSS 470
This course examines the developments of Russian animation from 1912 to 2007. We will discuss Russian cartoons as a specific cultural phenomenon which tells us of aesthetic, ideological, historical, and psychological issues in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
TR 12:00 - 1:30 | FBH 231
KORSHUNOVA, Svetlana
CINE 365.602 - Fate and Chance in Literature and Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 432; COML 196
Be a winner – manage all your situations and don’t let a pure chance to govern your life! With a chain of literary characters as a vivid illustration, you will explore a mysterious world of fate and chance and learn about various interpretations of the forces ruling human life. Slavic and Greek mythology, as well as folklore and modern literary works of Russian and Western writers and cinematographers will assist you in your journey to the world of supernatural. Screenings will include Zeffirelli’s and Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet.
T 5:30 - 8:30 | FBH 138
ZUBAREV, Vera
PRODUCTION FILM COURSES
CINE 061 - Film Video I
Cross-listed: FNAR 061
This class offers video production as a means of personal expression. Students will be assisted in translating ideas into movies. All the work in class will be done on digital video. Digital video cameras and editing equipment will be provided; students must provide video tapes and DVDs.
Section 401: M 1:00 - 4:00 | ADDM 207 | VAN CLEVE, Emory
Section 402: T 1:00 - 4:00 | ADDM 207 | REYNOLDS, Ellen
Section 403: T 4:30 - 7:30 | ADDM 207 | REYNOLDS, Ellen
Section 404: W 10:00 - 1:00 | ADDM 207 | REYNOLDS, Ellen
Section 601: R 4:30 - 7:30 | ADDM 111 | BUCK, Paul
CINE 062.401/402 - Film Video II
Cross-listed: FNAR 062
Film/Video II is a hands-on course in super 8mm and/or digital video moviemaking in which each student plans and creates three short productions. Techniques learned in FNAR 061 will be refined while exploring the role of sound and aesthetics in the filmmaking/video process. Auditors not permitted.
Section 401: R 7:30 - 10:30 | ADDM 111 | BUCK, Paul
Section 402: W 4:30 - 7:30 | ADDM 207 | REYNOLDS, Ellen
CINE 065.401 - Cinema Production
Cross-listed: FNAR 065
This course focuses on the practice and theory of producing narrative based cinema. Members of the course will become the film crew and produce a short digital film. Workshops on producing, directing, lighting, camera, sound and editing will build skills necessary for the hands-on production shoots. Visiting lecturers will critically discuss the individual roles of production in the context of the history of film.
T 1:30 - 4:30 | VANP FLMCR
VAN CLEVE, Emory
CINE 066.401 - Sound Seminar: Sonic Measures
Cross-listed: FNAR 066
Sonic measures is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice on digital audio design, including sound for video, sound installation, composition, and sound art. Projects and demonstrations will familiarize students with all aspects of recording and synthesis of sound using Apple's Logic Pro software. Assignments will combine technical issues alongside an ongoing conceptual development individual to each student's interests. No musical knowledge needed.
R 10:00 - 1:00 | ADDM 207
ADKINS, Terry
CINE 067.401 - Advanced Video Projects
Cross-listed: FNAR 067
This course presents students with an advanced level investigation into various forms of digital video projects as well as non-traditional presentation formats. Structured to create a more focused environment for individual projects, students will present and discuss their work in a series of group critiques. Lecture topics, screenings, and technical demonstrations will vary depending on students' past history as well as aesthetic and theoretical interests.
R 1:00 - 4:00 | ADDM 207
staff
CINE 068.401 - Cinematography
Cross-listed: FNAR 068
This course will be a technical, practical and aesthetic exploration of the art and practice of cinematography as it pertains to film and digital video. Through screenings, in-class exercises and out-of class assignments, students will examine both the fundamentals of camera and lighting and the possibilities of using them for visual expression. Topics to be covered include composition, camera movement, lenses, filtration, exposure, hard vs. soft light, color temperature, location shooting, lighting instruments and how to use them, controlling light, grip equipment, the history of motion picture photography, current digital video technology and the increasing interaction between film and video.
NOTE: This course has as a prerequisite to have taken Film/Video I (FNAR 061/CINE 061).
T 10:00 - 1:00 | ADDM 207
VAN CLEVE, Emory
CINE 116.401/601 - Screenwriting
Cross-listed: ENGL 116
This is a workshop-style course for those who have thought they had a terrific idea for a movie but didn't know where to begin. The class will focus on learning the basic tenets of classical dramatic structure and how this (ideally) will serve as the backbone for the screenplay of the aforementioned terrific idea. Each student should, by the end of the semester, have at least thirty pages of a screenplay completed. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class, and students will also become acquainted with how the business of selling and producing one's screenplay actually happens.
Section 401: T 1:30 - 4:30 | CPCW 111 | DE MARCO, Kathleen
Section 601: M 5:00 - 8:00 | FBH 25 | LAPADULA, Marc
CINE 130.401/402 - Advanced Screenwriting
Cross-listed: ENGL 130
This is a workshop-style course for students who have completed a screenwriting class, or have a draft of a screenplay they wish to improve. Classes will consist of discussing student's work, as well as discussing relevant themes of the movie business and examining classic films and why they work as well as they do. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class in addition to some potentially useful texts like /What Makes Sammy Run?/ Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email. Please send a writing sample (in screenplay form), a brief description of your interest in the course and your goals for your screenplay, and any relevant background or experience.
Section 401: W 2:00 - 5:30 | KWH 202 | DE MARCO, Kathleen
Section 402: R 2:00 - 6:00 | KWH 202 | ROSENTHAL, Mark
CINE 267.401 - Computer Animation
Cross-listed: FNAR 267
Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on 2D and 3D computer animation. Emphasis is placed on time-based design and storytelling by developing new sensitivities to movement, matography, editing, sound, color and lighting. Compositing software covered in the course will be used to combine 2D graphics, 3D animation and sound. Recommended Materials: Wacom Pen.
MW 1:00 - 4:00 | ADDM 106
MOSLEY, Joshua
CINE 289.401 - Mix Media Animation
Cross-listed: FNAR 289
This animation course fuses hands-on studio drawing, modeling and matic processes with digital tools. Real world techniques such as stop-motion, claymation, hand-drawn and multi-plane animation will be practiced in the studio. Other techniques, such as keyframe animation, editing and blue-screen composition compositing will be practiced in the digital labs. Both production teams and individuals will create short mixed-media animations in form, material and time.
TR 9:00 - 12:00 | ADDM 106
MOSLEY, Joshua
CINE 353.401 - Advanced Projects Animation
Cross-listed: FNAR 353
Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on advanced concepts in 3D computer animation and 2D compositing. The courses will cover advanced techniques for rigging animated characters or structures, shading 3D forms, working with dynamic simulations, rendering projects, and compositing complex shots. Topics discussed will include production pipelines, motion-capture, and methods of developing ideas for animation. The schedule of the course will lend itself to allowing members to complete ambitious self-conceived animation projects.
TR 4:30 - 7:30 | ADDM 106
MOSLEY, Joshua
CRITICAL WRITING SEMINARS IN FILM
CINE 009.301 - In the Zone
The ancient Greeks immortalized their athletes in praise poems and marble sculptures, whereas we tend to use film, play-by-play commentary, and talk radio to celebrate, describe, or critique feats of physical wonder. In this course, we will explore the links between writing and doing, between the mind and the body. We will examine a range of films (possible titles include The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Natural, and Blue Crush), as well as essays and news articles. We will disregard unreasonable coaches, love interests, and other distracting plot elements to address the problem of “translating” physical form, motion, and experiences into images and words. Students need not be athletes to enroll, but personal experience will form the basis of several writing assignments.
MW 3:30 - 5:30 | FBH 401
SADASHIGE, Jacqueline
CINE 009.302/303 - Arrested Development
A Bildungsroman is commonly translated as a "narrative of development." This writing-intensive course will use punk-inspired films such as Trainspotting, Fight Club, American History X, A Clockwork Orange, Ghost World, and La Haine as an occasion to explore the development of punk artists, and the worldview that brought about their unique vision. There will be many short papers, written with an eye to using small pieces as "building blocks," with students learning to combine and expand these into longer essays
Section 302: MW 2:00 - 3:30 | VANP FLMCR
Section 303: MW 5:00 - 6:30 | FBH 222
BAUMLI, Kristina
CINE 009.304/602 - Cinema of Paranoia
While cinema may be understood as nothing else but a medium for the representation of systematized delusions and the projection of personal, political, and social fears, this course explores films that provide an especially fruitful occasion for writing about the phenomenon of paranoia. Students will have the opportunity to recognize and write according to the principles of well-established genres of film comment, including auteur, political, and mise-en-scène styles. The contemporary rhetoric of the superlative will be explored in the one polished film review for the course. Is there a difference between individual anxiety and mass hysteria? What kinds of strategies do societies develop to cope with fear? How does someone become a person beset by pervasive distrust and suspiciousness? Is there more to fear than “fear itself”? Films and readings include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M., Gojira, The Birds, Night of the Living Dead, and Chinatown.
Section 304: TR 5:00 - 6:30 | VANP FLMCR
Section 602: W 5:30 - 8:30 | VANP FLMCR
BURRI, Michael
CINE 009.305 - Queen Elizabeth
The life of Elizabeth Tudor has captured the imagination of artists since her coronation in 1558. Screen stars including Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, and Bette Davis have portrayed the English monarch in films offering insight into the complex inner world of an exceptional individual who transformed history. This writing seminar will examine Queen Elizabeth I through the prism of these movies and other visual and musical genres. What is fact, what is myth, and where does reponsibility in storytelling lie? How much creative license may or must a director, screenwriter, or actor take to appeal to a modern audience? How has the modern audience itself changed? We will address these questions while learning about the intricacies of the Tudor dynasty, the turbulent political landscape of Europe during the 16th century, and musical and artistic movements of the period. Assignments will include several short essays, peer review, and a final portfolio.
TR 3:00 - 4:30 | FBH 407
AHN, Suhnne
CINE 009.306 - Modern Gothic
Since the late 18th century, Gothic tales of ancient castles and creepy graveyards haunted by ghosts, vampires, and demons have served as a barometer for a variety of cultural anxieties at particular moments in history. As these cultural anxieties shift and mutate, so do the conventions and motifs used to represent them. In this writing-intensive seminar, we will consider the Gothic as it haunts the contemporary horror film with particular attention paid to the shift from haunted castles and crypts to the monstrous intrusions into suburban houses, city subways, and media technologies. We will watch films such as John Carpenter’s Halloween, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic, and Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. In order to improve students’ writing skills, general requirements will include active class participation, frequent in-class writing, weekly viewing journals, and the revision of several short formal essays.
T 1:30 - 3:00 | NEGB 122
TR 1:30 - 3:00 | FBH 16
FIUMARA, James
CINE 009.307 - Film Literacy
It’s said that the earliest movie audiences cowered in their seats, fearing the locomotive onscreen was about to surge into the theater and crush them. While historically dubious, this story of early cinema has great resonance. As a popular medium, motion pictures dominated much of the 20th century and continue to fascinate and frighten us even today. This writing seminar will explore the history and culture of film literacy: how, in short, we as a culture and society learned to watch movies. We will consider what it means to be film or media literate: is it an area of knowledge? A set of interpretive skills? The ability to influence or even create what appears onscreen? We will write and share essays about the movies, our experiences as moviegoers, and the sort of stories we’d like to see in pictures. Though not a film production class, our semester will culminate in a collaborative project that allows you to apply your writing skills to a short film or video.
TR 3:00 - 4:00 | FBH 16
WEHNER, Patrick
CINE 009.308/601 - American Film Renaissance of the 1970s
From The Godfather and Taxi Driver to Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, many agree that the 1970s was one the greatest decades in US film history. We will discuss the artistic influences and innovations of some of the many 70s films that received both critical and popular acclaim, and how they addressed the complex social and psychological issues of that turbulent decade. We will also ponder the rise of the summer "blockbuster" and its influence in shaping subsequent Hollywood productions to this day. Our personal and collective responses to these films will constitute the basis of the substantial amount of written work required in this course, in the forms of the critical essay, the film review, the weekly journal and the in-class writing assignment. Directors will include Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and others. No prior experience in film studies required, just a serious critical appreciation for film as an art form and as a powerful cultural institution.
Section 308: TR 3:00 - 4:30 | DRLB 3C2
Section 601: M 5:30 - 8:30 | FBH 138
WOLMART, Gregory
GRADUATE FILM COURSES
CINE 500.640 - Internet Policy and Culture
Cross-listed: ENGL 505
In this course we will explore the public policies and cultures of use that regulate and drive the Internet. Weekly topics include surveillance and privacy, intellectual property, network neutrality, media ownership, user-generated content, peer-to-peer networks, virtual worlds, and mobile media. Readings are drawn from a wide range of documents, from manifestoes to legal decisions to scholarly essays. We will consider the history of the Internet as well as its current state and possible futures. Students will be expected to do original research that they will present in class and write up as research papers.
T 6:00 - 8:40 | FBH 322
DECHERNEY, Peter
CINE 515.640 - Realism in Fiction Films
Cross-listed: ENGL 573; COML 570
Are movies like mirrors, showing us things about ourselves? Or are movies like rollercoasters, giving us thrills and tricks? This debate, as old as film itself, has only been heightened in our modern media landscape, defined by YouTube at one extreme and video games at the other. This seminar examines film history as a struggle among conflicting visions of realism. We will interrogate realism in both theory and practice, through a wide range of films and texts that have tried to define what it means for a fiction film to be “real.” Screenings will span film history, from the earliest cinema of the 1890s through contemporary Dogme 95 and “mumblecore” movements, including Italian Neorealism, French Poetic Realism, German Expressionism, and the American Direct Cinema innovations of the 1960s and 1970s, especially the work of John Cassavetes. Writers include Rudolf Arnheim, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, André Bazin, David Bordwell, Michel de Certeau, Pauline Kael, Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Metz, and Kristin Thompson.
M 5:30 - 8:10 | TOWN 319
CHARNEY, Leo
CINE 600.401 - Women's Cinema and World Cinema
Cross-listed: ENGL 760
The concept of women's cinema, with its ambiguities--by women, or for women? popular or feminist?-has been debated within feminist film scholarship for three decades. The concept of world cinema-curricular component, brand, or transnational formation?-is currently undergoing an intensified interrogation. With a focus on films directed by women-art film, "national-popular" films, documentary, shorts, and indie features, this course looks at female authorship, festival and arthouse programming, national identity, human rights, and feminist scholarship and politics as discourses and practices that shape the intersection of women's cinema and world cinema at the current moment.
M 2:00 - 5:00 | FBH 244
WHITE, Patricia
CINE 793.401 - Feeling Modern
Cross-listed: SAST 610; ASAM 510; ENGL591
In this course we will focus on postcolonial and global modernity as they are imagined through cinema. Foregrounding the concept of affect, we will consider topics such as: the role of mass affect as mass culture; nationalism, community, sentimentality, and nostalgia; film technology and film industry development as productive of a history of the senses; affect and the (gendered and racialized) subject and body, film genres and the development of postcolonial modernisms; style; cinephilia and the production of publics; representations of popular religiosity; and the relationship between feeling and ideology. We will examine films that suggest particular affective states. Our study will be interdisciplinary and readings will draw on fields of cinema, area studies, cultural studies as well as anthropology, philosophy, and history.
W 5:00 - 8:00 | FBH 201
MAJITHIA, Sheetal
