Cinema and Media Studies

This is an archived copy of the 2012-13 catalog. To access the most recent version of the catalog, please visit http://catalogs.uchicago.edu.

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Contacts

Undergraduate Primary Contact

Director of Undergraduate Studies Jennifer Wild
G-B 420
834-1077
Email

Administrative Contact

Department Coordinator Matt Wallace
G-B 418
834-1077
Email

Website

http://cms.uchicago.edu

Program of Study

For more than a century, and across widely different cultures, film has been a primary medium for storytelling; it has served to depict and explore the world, to engage and shape the human senses and emotions, memory, and imagination. We live in a time in which the theatrical exhibition of films to a paying public is no longer the primary venue in which motion pictures are consumed. But cinema seems to survive, even as it is being transformed by television, video, and digital media; these media, in turn, are giving rise to new forms of moving image culture.

The major in Cinema and Media Studies provides a framework within which students can approach the history of film and related media from a variety of historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives. Focusing on the study of the moving image, as well as sound, the program enables students to analyze how cinema creates meanings through particular forms, techniques, and styles; how industrial organization affects the way films are produced and received; and how the social context in which they are made and circulated influences our understanding of the medium.

At the same time, the goal is to situate the cinema and related media in broader contexts: modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde; narrative theory, poetics, and rhetoric; commercial entertainment forms and consumer culture; sexuality and gender; constructions of ethnic, racial, and national identities; and international media production and circulation.

Students graduating with a Cinema and Media Studies major will be trained in critical, formal, theoretical, and historical thinking and analysis. The program thus fosters discussion and writing skills. Students will gain the tools to approach film history as well as today's media environment within specific cultural contexts and broad transnational perspectives.

Students wishing to enter the program should consult with the Director of Undergraduate Studies no later than Spring Quarter of their second year. Participation in the program must be declared to the Director of Undergraduate Studies before registration.

Program Requirements

The major consists of twelve courses (four required courses and eight elective courses) and a BA research paper.

Required Courses

The following five courses are required:

CMST 10100 Introduction to Film Analysis. This course provides an introduction to the basic concepts of film analysis. It should be completed before other Cinema and Media Studies courses; it must be completed before other required courses. It should be completed as early as possible; it must be completed by the end of the third year.

History of International Cinema sequence CMST 28500 and 28600. This required two-quarter sequence covers the silent era (CMST 28500 History of International Cinema I: Silent Era) and the sound era to 1960 (CMST 28600 History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960), as well as major characteristics and developments of each. It is typically taught in Autumn and Winter Quarters. It should be completed by the end of the third year.

CMST 29800 Senior Colloquium. In Autumn Quarter of their fourth year, students must participate in a Senior Colloquium that helps them conceptualize their BA research paper and address more advanced questions of methodology and theory.

CMST 29900 BA Research Paper. Students are required to register for CMST 29900 BA Research Paper during the term in which they plan to graduate from the College. Registration for CMST 29900 ensures that a thesis grade will appear on the student's transcript. While students who entered the College before Autumn Quarter 2011 are not required to REGISTER for CMST 29900 as part of the major, they are strongly urged to do so to ensure that a thesis grade appears on the transcript. Whether or not these students choose to register for CMST 29900, they must complete the BA thesis as part of the program requirements.

Elective Courses

Of the eight remaining courses, five must either originate in or be cross-listed with Cinema and Media Studies. Students must receive prior approval of the five courses that they choose, and they are encouraged to consider broad survey courses as well as those with more focused topics (e.g., courses devoted to a single genre, director, or national cinema). Members of the affiliated faculty often teach courses that meet requirements for the three elective courses; students are encouraged to consult with them when making their selections. A course agreement form to be signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Autumn Quarter of the student's third year is available in G-B 418 and on the CMS website.

Although the other three courses may be taken outside Cinema and Media Studies, students must demonstrate their relevance to the study of cinema. For example, a group of courses could focus on: traditional disciplines (e.g., history, anthropology/ethnography, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, sociology, political economy); subfields within area studies (e.g., East Asian, South Asian, African American, Jewish studies); art forms and media other than film, photography, and video (e.g., art history, architecture, literature, theater, opera, dance); or cross-disciplinary topics or sets of problems (e.g., the urban environment, violence and pornography, censorship, copyright and industry regulation, concepts of the public sphere, globalization). A form listing and explaining the choice of outside electives must be submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Winter Quarter of the student's third year is available in G-B 418.

BA Research Paper

Before seventh week of Spring Quarter of their third year, students meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies to discuss the focus of their required BA project. Students begin reading and research during the summer. By the end of fourth week of the Autumn Quarter of their fourth year, students select a project adviser and prepare to present an outline of their project to the Senior Colloquium. Writing and revising take place during Winter Quarter. The final version is due by fourth week of the quarter in which the student plans to graduate.

The BA research paper typically consists of a substantial essay that engages a research topic in the history, theory, and criticism of film and/or other media. A creative project in film or video production supplemented by an essay is sometimes an option, contingent on the approval of the faculty.

To be considered for this option, the student will submit a written proposal to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the seventh week of Spring Quarter of the third year. Priority will be given to students who have completed three production classes (2 must originate in CMST) by the end of Autumn Quarter of their fourth year.

In addition to enrollment in CMST 29800 Senior Colloquium during the Autumn Quarter of the fourth year, students who supplement their BA thesis project with film or video work are required to enroll in CMST 23904 Senior Creative Thesis Workshop during the Winter Quarter of their fourth year. The Senior Creative Thesis Workshop may not be counted toward distribution requirements for the major. All students are required to register for CMST 29900 BA Research Paper during the term in which they plan to graduate from the College.

Summary of Requirements

CMST 10100	Introduction to Film Analysis	100
CMST 28500 & 28600	History of International Cinema I: Silent Era and History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960	200
CMST 29800	Senior Colloquium	100
5 elective courses in Cinema and Media Studies (courses originating in or cross listed with Cinema and Media Studies) ^*		500
3 elective courses (courses originating in Cinema and Media Studies or elsewhere that are relevant to the study of cinema) ^**		300
CMST 29900	BA Research Paper ^†	000
Total Units		1200

*	A course agreement form to be signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Autumn Quarter of a student's third year is required to obtain approval of these courses.
**	A form to be signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Winter Quarter of a student's third year is required to obtain approval of these courses.
†	Students are required to register for CMST 29900 BA Research Paper, although it carries no course credit. Students must register for CMST 29900 during the term in which they graduate from the College.

Grading

Students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies must receive a quality grade in all courses required for the major. With prior consent of instructor, non-majors may take Cinema and Media Studies courses for P/F grading.

Honors

Students who have earned an overall GPA of 3.25 or higher and a GPA of 3.5 or higher in Cinema and Media Studies courses are eligible for honors. To receive honors, students must also write a BA research paper that shows exceptional intellectual and/or creative merit in the judgment of the first and the second readers, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, and the Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division.

Advising

A course agreement form to be signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Autumn Quarter of the student's third year is required to obtain approval of the five elective courses that must either originate in or be cross listed with Cinema and Media Studies. A form to be signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies by fourth week of Winter Quarter of the student's fourth year is required to obtain approval of the three additional elective courses. Both forms are available in G-B 418.

Minor Program in Cinema and Media Studies

The minor in Cinema and Media Studies requires the completion of six courses:

CMST 10100	Introduction to Film Analysis	100
CMST 28500 & 28600	History of International Cinema I: Silent Era and History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960	200
Three courses numbered 20000 or above		300
Total Units		600

Students are encouraged to take CMST 10100 Introduction to Film Analysis early in their undergraduate career, or at the beginning of their minor course of study. It must be taken no later than Spring Quarter of a student's third year.

Students who elect the minor program in Cinema and Media Studies must meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the end of the Winter Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor and to select courses. The Director's approval of the minor program should be submitted to a student's College adviser no later than the end of Spring Quarter of a student's third year. Approval forms are obtained from the Director of Undergraduate Studies, the department website, or the College adviser.

Courses in the minor (1) may not be double-counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors; and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. All classes toward the minor must be taken for quality grades, and more than half of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

Sample minor program in Cinema and Media Studies

CMST 10100	Introduction to Film Analysis	100
CMST 28500	History of International Cinema I: Silent Era	100
CMST 28600	History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960	100
and
CMST 23404	French Cinema, 1920s–1930s	100
CMST 24701	Left-Wing Art and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s	100
CMST 25201	Cinema and the First Avant-Garde, 1890-1933	100

Cinema and Media Studies Courses

CMST 10100. Introduction to Film Analysis. 100 Units.

This course introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Spring
Note(s): Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 20000,ARTV 25300,ENGL 10800

CMST 10300. Visual Language: On Time and Space. 100 Units.

Through studio work and critical discussion on four-dimensional form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of the moving image, performance, and/or the production of digital-based media. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as but not limited to narrative, mechanical reproduction, verisimilitude, historical tableaux, time and memory, the body politic, and the role of the author can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Some sections focus solely on performance; others incorporate moving image technology. Please check the time schedule for details. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, and 10300 may be taken in sequence or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Previous experience in media-based studio courses not accepted as a substitute for this course.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 10300,TAPS 23400

CMST 20101. Women Mystery Writers: From Page to Screen. 100 Units.

Many distinguished filmmakers have found inspiration in mystery novels written by women. This course is a reading of novels by Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley's Game) and Ruth Rendell (Tree of Hands, The Bridesmaid, Live Flesh). Time permitting, we also read Laura by Vera Caspary, Bunny Lake Is Missing by Evelyn Piper, and Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong. We also analyze the films based on these novels, directed by such luminaries as Hitchcock, Chabrol, Caviani, Clément, Wenders, Almodóvar, and Preminger. Topics include techniques of film adaptation; transnational dislocations from page to screen; the problematics of gender; and the transformations of "voice," understood both literally and mediatically.

Instructor(s): R. West
Prerequisite(s): CMST 30101,GNDR 20202,GNDR 30202

CMST 20202. Feminist Theory and Counter-Cinema. 100 Units.

Feminism in Great Britain, France, and America has produced a rigorous intellectual, theoretical, and aesthetic legacy within the field of film studies. This course will explore the central debates of feminist psychoanalytic film theory (the patriarchal unconscious, Hollywood narrative, the gaze, genre, visual/female pleasure, masochism, the female spectator, resistant spectators) and criticism as we also integrate the contemporary movement of feminist historiography into our central mode of inquiry. The theoretical debates surrounding the critique of language, the question of feminine writing, cin™criture, and the female author will inform our investigation of the radical aesthetics of feminist counter cinema. Films include: Queen Christina, Orlando, Craig’s Wife, Le Bonheur, Vertigo, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Mahogany, Salomé , Fuses, Riddles of the Sphynx, Film About a Woman Who..., Jeanne Dielman, Tapage Nocturne, Sex Is Comedy.

Instructor(s): J. Wild

CMST 21801. Chicago Film History. 100 Units.

Students in this course screen and discuss films to consider whether there is a Chicago style of filmmaking. We trace how the city informs documentary, educational, industrial, narrative feature, and avant-garde films. If there is a Chicago style of filmmaking, one must look at the landscape of the city; and the design, politics, cultures, and labor of its people, as well as how they live their lives. The protagonists and villains in these films are the politicians and community organizers, our locations are the neighborhoods, and the set designers are Mies van der Rohe and the Chicago Housing Authority.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 26750,ARTV 36750,CMST 31801,HMRT 25104,HMRT 35104

CMST 21900. American Cinema Since 1961. 100 Units.

The year 1960 is commonly understood as a watershed in U.S. film history, marking the end of the so-called "classical" Hollywood cinema. We discuss this assumption in terms of the break-up of the studio system; the erosion of the Production Code; the crisis of audience precipitated by television's mass spread; and the changing modes of film reception, production, and style under the impact of video, cable, and other electronic communication technologies. We also relate cinema to social and political issues of the post-1960s period and ask how films reflected upon and intervened in contested areas of public and private experience. With the help of the concept of "genre" (and the changed "genericity" of 1980s and 1990s films) and of the notion of "national cinema" (usually applied to film traditions other than the United States), we attempt a dialogue between industrial/stylistic and cultural-studies approaches to film history.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Prerequisite(s): Background in cinema studies or prior film course(s)
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 28702

CMST 23000. Neorealism: Space, Culture, History. 100 Units.

Following the traumatic devastations of Fascism, the physical and moral collapse of World War II, filmmakers such as Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica (to cite only the most famous) offered the most immediate and influential responses to reconstruction of postwar Europe. Neorealism thus became a model for the renewal of cinemas everywhere, binding a new ethic and aesthetic of filmmaking in ways that remain exemplary for other nations and minorities to this day. In its renewed exploration of space and location, temporality and history, neorealism was also a central reference for artists, architects, and writers. This course will interlace key neorealist feature films with lesser known works, including documentaries and shorts, offering fresh perspectives on one of the most influential movements in film history. All readings in English.

Instructor(s): N. Steimatsky

CMST 23001. From La Dolce Vita to the Murder of Pasolini. 100 Units.

This course explores an intensely productive, stormy, even delirious period in Italian film culture between 1960 and 1975. In that era the material and social transformations effected by the economic boom, the marketing of Italy’s luxury image, the student movements, and the rise of left and right wing terrorism provoked some of the richest, most innovative work by such filmmakers as Antonioni, Pasolini, Bellocchio, Leone, among others. This Italian "New Wave," distinct from its French counterpart, responded to a host of political and cultural imperatives through new visions of urban space, of social and sexual mores, the relation of "high" and "low," and revisitations of the past both near and distant. These and related questions bound up with film culture and aesthetics we shall discuss in light of both monumental and lesser-known works. All readings in English.

Instructor(s): N. Steimatsky

CMST 23202. Rome in Film and Literature. 100 Units.

We shall analyze films and fictional works that reflect both realities and myths about the “Eternal City,” Rome. Classical Rome will not be studied; instead the focus will be on a trajectory of works, both written and cinematic, that are set in and explore late nineteenth to late twentieth-century Rome. The goal is to analyze some of the numerous diverse representations of modern Rome that portray historical, political, subjective, and/or fantastical/mythopoetic elements that have interacted over time to produce the palimpsest that is the city of Rome. Books by D’Annunzio, Moravia, Pasolini and Malerba; films by Fellini, Visconti, Rossellini, Bertolucci, Pasolini, and Moretti.

Instructor(s): R. West Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in English; Italian majors will read the texts in the original Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 23203,CMST 32302,ITAL 33203

CMST 23404. French Cinema, 1920s–1930s. 100 Units.

In our study of two decades in the history of French cinema, we will track the rise of the poetic realist style from the culture of experimentation that was alive in both the French film industry and its surrounding artistic and literary landscape. As an exercise in the excavation of a history of film style, we will consider the salient features of the socio-political, cultural, theoretical, and critical landscape that define the emergence and the apex of poetic realism, and that reveal it as a complicated nexus in the history of film aesthetics. Main texts by Dudley Andrew and Richard Abel will accompany a wide range of primary texts. Films by Epstein, L’Herbier, Buñuel, Dulluc, Dulac, Gance, Clair, Vigo, Feyder, Renoir, Duvivier, Allégret, Carné, Grémillon.

Instructor(s): J. Wild
Note(s): This class is cross-listed with the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and may be accompanied by a French language section.

CMST 23700. La Nouvelle Vague/The French New Wave. 100 Units.

Neither a coherent movement nor a precise style, La Nouvelle Vague was nonetheless a watershed moment in the history of modernism. In this class, we will study the French New Wave’s emergence from the context of post WWII modernization and Existentialism, cinephilia, film criticism, and theory. With an examination of canonical and lesser-known films (1950-early 1970s), we will pursue our study from the standpoint of cinematic ontology and French cultural and political history. We shall explore how this cinema considerably expanded the parameters of modern art practice and intellectual thought as well as redirected assumptions surrounding the medium’s formal and philosophic capacities. Films by Rohmer, Rivette, Truffaut, Godard, Eustache, Varda, Raynal, Chabrol, Rouch, Resnais, Garrel, and others.

Instructor(s): J. Wild
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 29112

CMST 23801. Bresson Against Cinema. 100 Units.

Robert Bresson is one of the most ambitious, most enigmatic filmmakers. In an era of reflexive, ironic post-classical cinema, it sometimes seemed as though he sought to ignore film history altogether, to defy its habits and conventions – to re-invent the medium in his own terms. Yet Bresson delves deeply into questions of cinema as a mode of perception, of knowledge and belief, as a way to explore social being and singularity: the individual inextricably, often tragically bound in the transactions of modern life. In this course we will consider Bresson’s sources, his modes of narration, the relation of text and image, visual style and sound practice; we will seek to define the special mode of attention that his films command. All readings are in English.

Instructor(s): N. Steimatsky
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 23801,FREN 33801

CMST 23904. Senior Creative Thesis Workshop. 100 Units.

This seminar will focus on how to craft a creative thesis in film or video. Works-in-progress will be screened each week, and technical and structural issues relating to the work will be explored. The workshop will also develop the written portion of the creative thesis. The class is limited to seniors from CMS and DOVA, and MAPH students working on a creative thesis.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): CMST 23930; CMST 23931; departmental approval of senior creative thesis project.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23904,ARTV 33904

CMST 23930. Documentary Production I. 100 Units.

This class is intended to develop skills in documentary production so that students may apply for Documentary Production II. Documentary Production I focuses on the making of independent documentary video. Examples of various styles of documentary will be screened and discussed. Issues embedded in the documentary genre, such as the ethics and politics of representation and the shifting lines between fact and fiction will be explored. Pre-production methodologies, production, and post-production techniques will be taught. Students will be expected to develop an idea for a documentary video, crews will be formed, and each crew will produce a five-minute documentary. Students will also be expected to purchase an external hard drive.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Prerequisite(s): Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100 is strongly recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23930

CMST 23931. Documentary Production II. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the shaping and crafting of a nonfiction video. Students are expected to write a treatment detailing their project. Production techniques focus on the handheld camera versus tripod, interviewing and microphone placement, and lighting for the interview. Postproduction covers editing techniques and distribution strategies. Students then screen final projects in a public space.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Prerequisite(s): CMST 23930/ARTV 23930
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23931,ARTV 33931,CMST 33931

CMST 24401. Czech New Wave Cinema. 100 Units.

The insurgent film movement known as the Czech New Wave spawned such directors as the internationally acclaimed Milos Forman (The Fireman’s Ball, Loves of a Blonde), Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains), JanKadar (The Shop on Main Street), and Vera Chytilova (Daisies), and the lesser known but nationally inspirational Evald Schorm, Jarmir Jires, Odlrich Lipsky,and Jan Nemec. The serendipitous life of the Czech New Wave is as much a subject of the course’s inquiry as close technical and semantic research of the films themselves.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein Terms Offered: Autumn 2012
Equivalent Course(s): CZEC 36701,CZEC 26700

CMST 24508. Decolonizing Drama and Performance in Africa. 100 Units.

This course examines the connections among dramatic writing, theatrical practice, and theoretical reflection on decolonization primarily in Africa and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Authors (many of whom write theory and theater) may include Aima Aidoo, Fatima Dike, Aime Cesaire, Franz Fanon, Fernandez Retamar, Athol Fugard, Biodun Jeyifo, Were Liking, Mustafa Matura, Jose Marti, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kwame Nkrumah, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott. Texts in English, French, and/or Spanish.

Instructor(s): L. Kruger
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing and prior course in either theater or African studies. Working knowledge of French and/or Spanish is required for Comparative Literature status and recommended, but not required, for other students.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 44508

CMST 24606. China’s New Documentary Cinema. 100 Units.

Since the early 1990s, the "new documentary" has emerged as one of the most prominent phenomena in Chinese film and video, widely circulating at international film festivals and eliciting considerable critical debate. This course examines the styles and functions of China’s "new documentary" over the last fifteen years, paying particular attention to the institutional, cultural, economic, and political conditions that underpin its flourishing. This overview will lead us to consider questions that concern the recent explosion of the documentary form worldwide, and to explore the tensions and imbalances that characterize the global circulation of the genre. We will address such issues as: what is "new" about China’s recent documentary cinema; the "national" and "transnational" dimensions of documentary filmmaking, and the ways in which these dimensions intersect in its production and circulation; the extent to which the international demand for "unofficial" images from China has contributed to its growth; the politics involved in documentary filmmaking, and the forms and meanings of "independent" cinema in the wake of intensified globalization; the links between Chinese documentary and the global rise of documentary filmmaking, and the ways in which they challenge extant concepts and theorizations of the genre.

Instructor(s): P. Iovene
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 34607

CMST 24611. Cities in Sinophone Cinemas. 100 Units.

From the treaty port of Shanghai to the imperial capital of Beijing, from the pre-colonized city of Taipei to the floating city of Hong Kong, and from an anonymous city in inland China to global Chinatowns, cities in Chinese-language cinemas at once reflect and participate in the historical transformations of modern China and the negotiation between national, local and cosmopolitan identities. Meanwhile, throughout its history, the motion-picture medium has shown an affinity with the city as an audio-visual ensemble, which in turn has provided constant inspiration for cinematic experimentation. Taking the chronotope of the sinophone city as an entry point, this course participates in both the on-going discussion of cinematic cities and the emerging discourse on the phonic articulation and visual mediation of a global sinophone culture. No knowledge of Chinese is required.

Instructor(s): X. Dong

CMST 24701. Left-Wing Art and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s. 100 Units.

This course considers Soviet "montage cinema" of the 1920s in the context of coeval aesthetic projects in other arts. How did Eisenstein's theory and practice of "intellectual cinema" connect to Fernand Leger and Vladimir Tatlin? What did Meyerhold's "biomechanics" mean for filmmakers? Among other figures and issues, we address Dziga Vertov and Constructivism, German Expressionism and Aleksandr Dovzhenko, and Formalist poetics and FEKS directors. Film screenings are three hours a week in addition to scheduled class time.

Instructor(s): Y. Tsivian

CMST 24913. Making Sense of a Moving World: Japanese Cinema through 1945. 100 Units.

The aim of this course is to explore a variety of filmmaking practices in relation to historical and cultural trends in Japan from the 1910s to the end of the Second World War. While we will watch films of the great auteurs such as Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Naruse, the increasing number of subtitled films and DVDs of prewar Japanese cinema allows for unprecedented access to a wide variety of filmmaking practices. Hence, in addition to auteur films, we will watch old-school period films and adaptations from popular literature, high speed nihilistic action films, socialist “tendency” films, critical documentaries, melodramas, experimental film and animation, and wartime propaganda. Along with the films, we will read writings on film by a range of thinkers and artists to engage with a variety of issues, including gender, realism, modernism, propaganda, human/animal, violence, and mass culture. We will look at the ways cinema, as both a participant in and a unique reflection on modernity, fundamentally transformed the relationship of Japan to the world.�

Instructor(s): Phil Kaffen Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 34913

CMST 25201. Cinema and the First Avant-Garde, 1890-1933. 100 Units.

Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 25205,ARTV 25201,CMST 45201

CMST 25501. Poetic Cinema. 100 Units.

Films are frequently denoted as "poetic" or "lyrical" in a vague sort of way. It has been applied equally to religious cinema and to the experimental avant-garde. Our task will be to interrogate this concept and to try to define what it actually is denoting. Films and critical texts will mainly be drawn from Soviet and French cinema of the 1920s-1930s and 1960s-1990s. Directors include Dovzhenko, Renoir, Cocteau, Resnais, Maya Deren, Tarkovsky, Pasolini, Jarman, and Sokurov. In addition to sampling these directors' own writings, we shall examine theories of poetic cinema by major critics from the Russian formalists to Andre Bazin beyond.

Instructor(s): R. Bird
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 35501,SLAV 29001,SLAV 39001

CMST 25514. Symbolism and Cinema. 100 Units.

In his 1896 essay on cinema, Russian writer Maxim Gorky described the new medium to "madness or symbolism." The connection between cinema and symbolism was not surprising insofar as symbolism was a dominant aesthetic paradigm throughout Europe at the time. However it does suggest (perhaps surprisingly) that from the very beginning cinema was seen as a means of visualizing the non-rational, uncanny and even invisible. This course examines the relationship between symbolism and cinema with particular attention to French and Russian writings and films. Examining how symbolist aesthetics became applied to the cinematic medium, we will pay particular attention the resources it provided for conceptualizing the uncanny and the mystical. We will question whether there exists a distinct symbolist tradition in film history and how it relates to notions of poetic or experimental cinema. Films will represent a broad cross-section of European (and some American) cinema, from Jean Epstein to Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko, and from Stan Brakhage to Andrei Tarkovsky.

Instructor(s): R. Bird
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 26500

CMST 25953. Transmedia Game. 100 Units.

This experimental course explores the emerging game genre of “transmedia” or “alternate reality” gaming. Transmedia games use the real world as their platform while incorporating text, video, audio, social media, websites, and other forms. We will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of transmedia games. Course requirements include weekly blog entry responses to theoretical readings; an analytical midterm paper; and collaborative participation in a single narrative-based transmedia game project. No preexisting technical expertise is required but a background in any of the following areas will help: creative writing, literary or media theory, web design, visual art, computer programming, performance, and game design.

Instructor(s): P. Jagoda Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 25953,ARTV 25401,CMST 35953,CRWR 26003,CRWR 46003,ENGL 32311,TAPS 28455

CMST 26501. Hitchcock: The Language of Narrative Desire. 100 Units.

No single filmmaker has equaled Alfred Hitchcock’s combination of popular success, critical commentary and widespread influence on other filmmakers. Currently, his work is so familiar it threatens to be taken for granted. This course will reveal Hitchcock as the filmmaker who systematically used the stylistics of late silent film to forge a dialectical approach to the so-called Classical Style. Hitchcock devised a relation among narrative, spectator and character point of view, yielding a configuration of suspense, sensation and perception. Tracing Hitchcock’s career chronologically, we will follow his intertwining of sexual desire and gender politics, and his reshaping of melodrama according to Freudian concepts of repression, memory, interpretation and abreaction, as he navigates from silent film to sound and from Great Britain to Hollywood. �

Instructor(s): Tom Gunning Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 36501

CMST 26802. Bunuel and Surrealism. 100 Units.

Description forthcoming.

Instructor(s): Jim Lastra Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 26802,LACS 36802,CMST 36802

CMST 27201. Zizek on Film. 100 Units.

Slavoj Zizek has used film as the great expositor of his theories of ideology, perversion, sexuality, politics, nostalgia, and otherness. In this discussion-heavy course we will watch a lot of film from the directorial subjects of his main discussions (Chaplin, Rossellini, Lynch, Haneke, Kieślowski, Tarkovsky, von Trier, Hitchcock, and others) alongside Zizek’s theoretical writings on their film. The course examines why for the man who has been called the "Elvis of cultural theory" film is such a perfect lens through which to examine social situatedness and intersubjective "aporia." There is no "paperwork" assigned for the course. The course is conducted seminar style and participants are expected to be vocal, prepared, and somewhat ornery.

Instructor(s): M. Sternstein

CMST 27402. The Modern Body and the Cinema. 100 Units.

From the late nineteenth-century motion studies of Marey and Muybridge, to the abstract spectacle of Loie Fuller's Serpentine Dance, to the slapstick comedies of Chaplin or Jean Durand, to early medical films, or the face of Maria Falconetti projected twenty five feet tall in close-up, early and silent cinema present a range of technological and aesthetic terms for a history of modern figuration. This class uses the body as a point of entry to an exploration of film aesthetics (from early cinema to post-WWII) in order to discuss how cinematographic temporality, spatiality, plasticity, materiality and hapticality underwrite the stakes of modern human figuration, expressivity, and even stardom within the context of modernity, war, and modernism. Films, among others, by Méliés, Chaplin, Keaton, Deed, Léger, Lang, Dreyer, Riefenstahl, Tati, Bresson, Maas, Ono, Brakhage, Denis.

Instructor(s): J. Wild

CMST 27600. Introduction to Black and White Film Photography. 100 Units.

Photography is a familiar medium due to its ubiquitous presence in our visual world, including popular culture and personal usage. In this class, students learn technical procedures and basic skills related to the 35mm camera, black and white film, and print development. They also begin to establish criteria for artistic expression. We investigate photography in relation to its historical and social context in order to more consciously engage the photograph's communicative and expressive possibilities. Course work culminates in a portfolio of works exemplary of the student's understanding of the medium. Field trips required.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Note(s): Camera and light meter required.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24000,ARTV 34000,CMST 37600

CMST 27602-27702. Photography I-II.

The goal of this course is to develop students’ investigations and explorations in photography, building on beginning level experience and basic facility with this medium. Students pursue a line of artistic inquiry by participating in a process that involves experimentation, reading, gallery visits, critiques, and discussions, but mostly by producing images. Primary emphasis is placed upon the visual articulation of the ideas of students through their work, as well as the verbal expression of their ideas in class discussions, critiques, and artist’s statements. As a vital component of articulating ideas and inquiry, students will refine their skills, e.g., black and white or color printing, medium or large format camera usage, or experimenting with light-sensitive materials. Courses taught concurrently and can be repeated as part of an ongoing, developing photographic project.

CMST 27602. Photography I. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): S. Huffman Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300; and 24000.
Note(s): Camera and light meter required. Courses taught concurrently and can be repeated as part of an ongoing, developing photographic project.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24401,ARTV 34401,CMST 37602

CMST 27702. Photography II. 100 Units.

CMST 27800. Theories of Media. 100 Units.

For course description contact English.

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 12800,AMER 30800,ARTH 25900,ARTH 35900,ARTV 25400,CMST 37800,ENGL 32800

CMST 28100. Issues in Film Music. 100 Units.

This course explores the role of film music in the history of cinema. What role does music play as part of the narrative (source music) and as nondiegetic music (underscoring)? How does music of different styles and provenance contribute to the semiotic universe of film? And how did film music assume a central voice in twentieth-century culture? We study music composed for films (original scores) as well as pre-existent music (e.g., popular and classical music). The twenty films covered in the course may include classical Hollywood cinema, documentaries, foreign (e.g., non-Western) films, experimental films, musicals, and cartoons.

Instructor(s): B. Hoeckner
Note(s): This course typically is offered in alternate years.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 38100,MUSI 22901,MUSI 30901

CMST 28200. Nonfiction Film: Representations and Performance. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 25100,ARTV 35100,CMST 38200,HMRT 25101,HMRT 35101

CMST 28201. Political Documentary Film. 100 Units.

This course explores the political documentary film, its intersection with historical and cultural events, and its opposition to Hollywood and traditional media. We will examine various documentary modes of production, from films with a social message, to advocacy and activist film, to counter-media and agit-prop. We will also consider the relationship between the filmmaker, film subject and audience, and how political documentaries are disseminated and, most importantly, part of political struggle.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 28204,ARTV 38204,CMST 38201

CMST 28500. History of International Cinema I: Silent Era. 100 Units.

This course introduces what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We also discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking.

Instructor(s): J. Lastra Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100. Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies.
Note(s): This is the first part of a two-quarter course.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 28500,ARTH 38500,ARTV 26500,ARTV 36500,CMLT 22400,CMLT 32400,CMST 48500,ENGL 29300,ENGL 48700,MAPH 36000

CMST 28600. History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960. 100 Units.

The center of this course is film style, from the classical scene breakdown to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting). The development of a film culture is also discussed. Texts include Thompson and Bordwell's Film History: An Introduction; and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, and Godard. Screenings include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir.

Instructor(s): Y. Tsivian Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Prior or concurrent registration in CMST 10100 required. Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies.
Note(s): CMST 28500/48500 strongly recommended
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 28600,ARTH 38600,ARTV 26600,CMLT 22500,CMLT 32500,CMST 48600,ENGL 29600,ENGL 48900,MAPH 33700

CMST 28800. Digital Imaging. 100 Units.

This studio course introduces fundamental tools and concepts used in the production of computer-mediated artwork. Instruction includes a survey of standard digital imaging software and hardware (i.e., Photoshop, scanners, storage, printing, etc), as well as exposure to more sophisticated methods. We also view and discuss the historical precedents and current practice of media art. Using input and output hardware, students complete conceptually driven projects emphasizing personal direction while gaining core digital knowledge.

Instructor(s): J. Salavon Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300

CMST 28801. Digital Imaging. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Salavon Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22500,ARTV 32500,CMST 38801

CMST 28900. Introduction to Video. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to video making with digital cameras and nonlinear (digital) editing. Students produce a group of short works, which is contextualized by viewing and discussion of historical and contemporary video works. Video versus film, editing strategies, and appropriation are some of the subjects that are part of an ongoing conversation.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23800,ARTV 33800,CMST 38900,TAPS 28427

CMST 28903. Video. 100 Units.

This is a production course geared towards short experimental works and video within a studio art context.

Instructor(s): C. Sullivan
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 23800 or consent of instructor

CMST 28920. Introduction to Film Production. 100 Units.

This intensive lab introduces 16mm film production, experimenting with various film stocks and basic lighting designs. The class is organized around a series of production situations with students working in crews. Each crew learns to operate and maintain the 16mm Bolex film camera and tripod, as well as Arri lights, gels, diffusion, and grip equipment. The final project is an in-camera edit.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23850,ARTV 33850,CMST 38920,TAPS 28451

CMST 29700. Reading and Research Course. 100 Units.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of faculty adviser and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. This course may be counted toward distribution requirements for the major.

CMST 29800. Senior Colloquium. 100 Units.

This seminar is designed to provide fourth-year students with a sense of the variety of methods and approaches in the field (e.g., formal analysis, cultural history, industrial history, reception studies, psychoanalysis). Students present material related to their BA project, which is discussed in relation to the issues of the course.

Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): CMST 10100. Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies.

CMST 29900. BA Research Paper. 000 Units.

Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies.
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. This course may not be counted toward requirements for the major or as a free-elective credit.

CMST 30101. Women Mystery Writers: From Page to Screen. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): R. West

CMST 31801. Chicago Film History. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 21801,ARTV 26750,ARTV 36750,HMRT 25104,HMRT 35104

CMST 32302. Rome in Film and Literature. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): R. West Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in English; Italian majors will read the texts in the original Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 23203,CMST 23202,ITAL 33203

CMST 33905. Creative Thesis Workshop. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Judy Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter
Prerequisite(s): CMST 23930; CMST 23931 or 27600; departmental approval of senior creative thesis project.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23905,ARTV 33905

CMST 33930. Documentary Production I. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100 recommended
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23930,ARTV 33930,CMST 23930,HMRT 25106,HMRT 35106

CMST 33931. Documentary Production II. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Prerequisite(s): CMST 23930/ARTV 23930
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 23931,ARTV 23931,ARTV 33931

CMST 34401. Czech New Wave Cinema. 100 Units.

The insurgent film movement known as the Czech New Wave spawned such directors as the internationally acclaimed Milos Forman (The Fireman’s Ball, Loves of a Blonde), Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains), Jan Kadar (The Shop on Main Street), and Vera Chytilova (Daisies), and the lesser known but nationally inspirational Evald Schorm, Jarmir Jires, Odlrich Lipsky, and Jan Nemec. The serendipitous life of the Czech New Wave is as much a subject of the course’s inquiry as close technical and semantic research of the films themselves.�

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CZEC 26700,CZEC 36701

CMST 34404. From Post-war to Post-wall: A History of Polish Film. 100 Units.

This course will explore post-World War II film from Poland – approaching the works both as examples of the cinematic art in the region, and as a lens through which to view developments and transformations in East European culture. We will view ten films by most renowned directors from Poland. The course will assess what the end of World War II, followed by joining the Eastern Bloc, the fall of communism, and finally by the entry into post-Soviet Europe have meant for the film culture and the Polish national film tradition. We will also consider how Eastern European cinematic discourse is undergoing – or should undergo – revision, viewing it as an increasingly transnational phenomenon, rather than the example of a national film industry. The films will be viewed in the original language with English subtitles. �

Instructor(s): Kinga Kosmala Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 24404,POLI 22400,POLI 32400

CMST 34607. China’s New Documentary Cinema. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): P. Iovene
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 24606

CMST 34613. The Martial Arts Tradition in Chinese Cinema. 100 Units.

This year’s course focuses on the martial arts film in Hong Kong cinema, in conjunction with a special quarter-long series on this topic at Doc Films. We will pay particular attention to the wuxia genre, tracing the genealogy of the chivalric code in the Chinese literary and performing tradition, and examining its continuous reinvention in the films of masters like King Hu, Chang Cheh, Bruce Lee, and Tsui Hark. Recurrent issues to be examined include the representation of violence, fantasy, and nationalism; the interplay between body, film style, and technology; the performance of masculinity and femininity; and the complex interactions between the global and local in today’s trans-national film culture.

Instructor(s): Judith Zeitlin Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Background in Cinema or East Asia helpful but not required. Screenings in conjunction with Doc Films series on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m., attendance is mandatory.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24323,EALC 34323,TAPS 28464

CMST 34913. Making Sense of a Moving World: Japanese Cinema through 1945. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Phil Kaffen Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 24913

CMST 35501. Poetic Cinema. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): R. Bird
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 25501,SLAV 29001,SLAV 39001

CMST 35953. Transmedia Game. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): P. Jagoda Terms Offered: Autumn

CMST 36501. Hitchcock: The Language of Narrative Desire. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Tom Gunning Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 26501

CMST 36802. Bunuel and Surrealism. 100 Units.

Description forthcoming.

Instructor(s): Jim Lastra Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 26802,LACS 26802,LACS 36802

CMST 37600. Introduction to Black and White Film Photography. 100 Units.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Note(s): Camera and light meter required.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24000,ARTV 34000,CMST 27600

CMST 37602-37702. Photography I-II.

CMST 37602. Photography I. 100 Units.

CMST 37702. Photography II. 100 Units.

CMST 37800. Theories of Media. 100 Units.

For course description contact English.

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 12800,AMER 30800,ARTH 25900,ARTH 35900,ARTV 25400,CMST 27800,ENGL 32800

CMST 38200. Nonfiction Film: Representations and Performance,Non-Fiction Film: Representation and Performance. 100 Units.

This course attempts to define nonfiction cinema by looking at the history of its major modes (e.g., documentary, essay, ethnographic, agitprop film), as well as personal/autobiographical and experimental works that are less easily classifiable. We explore some of the theoretical discourses that surround this most philosophical of film genres (e.g., ethics and politics of representation; shifting lines between fact and fiction, truth and reality). The relationship between the documentary and the state is examined in light of the genre's tendency to inform and instruct. We consider the tensions of filmmaking and the performative aspects in front of the lens, as well as the performance of the camera itself. Finally, we look at the ways in which distribution and television effect the production and content of nonfiction film. , We will attempt to define Non-Fiction cinema by examining its major modes. These include the Documentary, Essay, Ethnographic, and Political/Agit-prop film, as well as personal/autobiographical and Experimental works that are less easily classifiable. We will explore some of the theoretical discourses that surround this most philosophical of film genres, such as the ethics and politics of representation, and the shifting lines between fact and fiction, truth and reality. The relationship between the Documentary and the State will be examined in light of the genre’s tendency to inform and instruct. We will consider the tensions of filmmaking and the performative aspects in front of the lens, as well as the performance of the camera itself. Finally, we will look at the ways in which distribution and television effect the production and content of Non-fiction film.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman,Judy Hoffman Terms Offered: ,Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ,HMRT 25101,ARTV 25100,ARTV 35100,HMRT 35101,CMST 28200

CMST 38201. Political Documentary Film. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28201,ARTV 28204,ARTV 38204

CMST 38801. Digital Imaging. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Salavon Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22500,ARTV 32500,CMST 28801

CMST 38900. Introduction to Video. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23800,ARTV 33800,CMST 28900,TAPS 28427

CMST 38920. Introduction to Film Production. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): J. Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23850,ARTV 33850,CMST 28920,TAPS 28451

CMST 40000. Methods and Issues in Cinema Studies. 100 Units.

This course offers an introduction to ways of reading, writing on, and teaching film. The focus of discussion will range from methods of close analysis and basic concepts of film form, technique and style; through industrial/critical categories of genre and authorship (studios, stars, directors); through aspects of the cinema as a social institution, psycho-sexual apparatus and cultural practice; to the relationship between filmic texts and the historical horizon of production and reception. Films discussed will include works by Griffith, Lang, Hitchcock, Deren, Godard.

Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 48000,MAPH 33000

CMST 40202. Feminist Theory and Counter-Cinema. 100 Units.

Feminism in Great Britain, France, and America has produced a rigorous intellectual, theoretical, and aesthetic legacy within the field of film studies. This course will explore the central debates of feminist psychoanalytic film theory (the patriarchal unconscious; Hollywood narrative; the gaze; genre; visual/female pleasure; masochism; the female spectator; resistant spectators) and criticism as we also integrate the contemporary movement of feminist historiography into our central mode of inquiry. The theoretical debates surrounding the critique of language, the question of feminine writing, cinécriture, and the female author will inform our investigation of the radical aesthetics of feminist counter cinema. Films include: Queen Christina; Orlando; Craig’s Wife; Le Bonheur; Vertigo; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Mahogany; Salome; Fuses; Riddles of the Sphynx; Film About a Woman Who...; Jeanne Dielman; Tapage Nocturne; Sex is Comedy.�

Instructor(s): Jennifer Wild Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 22213,FREN 32213,GNSE 20208,GNSE 30308

CMST 44508. Decolonizing Drama and Performance in Africa. 100 Units.

CMST 44510. The Aesthetics of Socialist Realism. 100 Units.

Socialist Realism was declared the official mode of Soviet aesthetic culture in 1934. Though it has been dismissed within the totalitarian model as propaganda or kitsch, this seminar will approach it from the perspective of its aesthetics. By this we mean not only its visual or literary styles, but also its sensory or haptic address to its audiences. Our premise is that the aesthetic system of Socialist Realism was not simply derivative or regressive, but developed novel techniques of transmission and communication; marked by a constant theoretical reflection on artistic practice, Socialist Realism redefined the relationship between artistic and other forms of knowledge, such as science. Operating in an economy of art production and consumption diametrically opposed to the Western art market, Socialist Realism challenged the basic assumptions of Western artistic discourse, including the concept of the avant-garde. It might even be said to offer an alternate model of revolutionary cultural practice, involving the chronicling and producing of a non-capitalist form of modernity. The seminar will focus on Soviet visual art, cinema and fiction during the crucial period of the 1930s under Stalin (with readings available in translation), but we welcome students with relevant research interests that extend beyond these parameters. Conducted jointly by professors Robert Bird (Slavic and Cinemaand Media Studies, University of Chicago) and Christina Kiaer, Art History, Northwestern University, course meetings will be divided evenly between the campuses of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

Instructor(s): Robert Bird, Christina Kiaer Terms Offered: Autumn

CMST 45201. Cinema and the First Avant-Garde, 1890-1933. 100 Units.

Equivalent Course(s): CMST 25201,ARTH 25205,ARTV 25201

CMST 48500-48600. History of International Cinema I-II.

This sequence is required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies. Taking these courses in sequence is strongly recommended but not required.

CMST 48500. History of International Cinema I: Silent Era. 100 Units.

This course introduces what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We also discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking.

Instructor(s): J. Lastra Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100. Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies.
Note(s): This is the first part of a two-quarter course.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28500,ARTH 28500,ARTH 38500,ARTV 26500,ARTV 36500,CMLT 22400,CMLT 32400,ENGL 29300,ENGL 48700,MAPH 36000

CMST 48600. History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960. 100 Units.

CMST 51300. Race, Media and Visual Culture. 100 Units.

For course description contact CDIN Center for Disciplinary Innovation.

Equivalent Course(s): CDIN 51300,ARTH 49309,ARTV 55500,CMLT 51500,ENGL 51300

CMST 63002. The Face on Film. 100 Units.

The seminar will discuss on the workings of the face –as imprint of identity, as figure of subjectivity, as privileged object of representation, as mode and ethic of address – through film theory and practice. How has cinema responded to the mythic and iconic charge of the face, to the portrait’s exploration of model and likeness, identity and identification, the revelatory and masking play of expression, the symbolic and social registers informing the human countenance. At this intersection of archaic desires and contemporary anxieties, the face will serve as our medium by which to reconsider, in the cinematic arena, some of the oldest questions on the image. Among the filmmakers and writers who will inform our discussion are Balázs, Epstein, Kuleshov, Dreyer, Pasolini, Hitchcock, Warhol, Bresson, Bazin, Barthes, Doane, Aumont, Nancy, Didi-Huberman, and others.

Instructor(s): Noa Steimatsky Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 43002,CMLT 43002

CMST 63701. Neo-Avant-Wave: Post-War Film Experiment in France. 100 Units.

The New Wave. The Neo-Avant Garde. Rarely have these film and art movements been placed into an explicit historical or theoretical dialog or dialectic. It will be the task of this seminar to do just that. We will begin our study with a brief look into the pre-WWII situation of radical art and film movements, and classic theories of the avant-garde and neo-avant-garde. Turning our attention to the rise of Lettrism within the context of post-war film and art culture, we will subsequently evaluate the conditions that surrounded the emergence of New Wave filmmaking and criticism, and that include the Situationist International and Nouveau Réalisme. As we move toward and beyond the events of May 1968, we will bring our study of social documentary, politically militant forms, collective film and art practices, and historiography to bear on purportedly stable understandings of the New Wave, its art historical forebearers, and its heirs. Reading knowledge of French is required. While some of our texts will appear in English translation, many will not. The seminar will be conducted in English, but the last thirty minutes of each session will be conducted in French. This component is intended to improve students’ oral proficiency, but it will not be used in student evaluation. Screenings are mandatory. With some possible exceptions, films will be subtitled. Students enrolled in FREN 43713 will be required to complete all reading and writing in French.�

Instructor(s): Jennifer Wild Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 43713,ARTH 43701

CMST 64903. Theory, Media, and the Moving Image in Japan. 100 Units.

This course sets out to explore the history and present of film and media theory in Japan. To that end, we will engage close readings of translated writings spanning the 20th century and into the 21st. The course is most centrally focused on cinema as the predominant moving image art or technology for much of the 20th century. We will explore its relationship to sociological issues such as economy, technology, and mass consumption, as well as philosophical and aesthetic issues of subjectivity, time and space, mediation, and representation. At the same time, we will attempt to situate such writings within a broader constellation of writings on literature, philosophy, photography, animation, and new media in Japan, and when possible, Western film and media theory. The emphasis in the class is on readings, but there will be a screening component as well. No Japanese language ability is required.�

Instructor(s): Phil Kaffen Terms Offered: Winter

CMST 65202. The Uncanny in Cinema. 100 Units.

The uncanny is an experience or quality that by definition remains difficult to grasp: something that is mysterious and enigmatic, yet also seems oddly familiar. To explore this term this seminar will draw largely on a tradition of commentary on the German word Das Unheimliche, usually translated as uncanny, that can be trace among Ernst Jentsch, Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger and it relevance to film and media studies. Freud and his disciple Otto Rank before 1920 related the uncanny to the cinema, and cinema’s ability to evoke the uncanny has been frequently observed. On the one hand, the cinema’s ability to portray uncanny events (as in Rank and Freud’s invocation of the 1913 film The Student of Prague) appears generically in films of fantasy or horror. In addition, some theorists have felt that film as a medium could be best approached via the uncanny. In this seminar we will read a series of the keys texts and try to survey the terrain of the concept of the uncanny. We will screen films that evoke the experience through their narrative and stylistics, and we will discuss the usefulness of the term for theorizing both film and electronic media, both new and old.�

Instructor(s): Tom Gunning Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 45202

CMST 67200. Classical Film Theory. 100 Units.

This course examines major texts in film theory from Vachel Lindsay and Hugo Münsterberg in the 1910s through André Bazin's writings in the 1940s and 1950s. We will devote special attention to the emergence of issues that continue to be of major importance, such as the film/language analogy, film semiotics, spectatorship, realism, montage, the modernism/mass culture debate, and the relationship between film history and film style. We will concentrate on the major theoretical writings of Münsterberg, Rudolf Arnheim, Jean Epstein, Sergei Eisenstein, Siegfried Kracauer, Bela Balazs, Bazin, as well as writings by Walter Benjamin, Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Jean Mitry, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and others.�

Instructor(s): Jim Lastra Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 68600