Committee on Cinema and Media Studies

Chair: Miriam Hansen, Wb 403, 702-8028
Secretary: Bo-Mi Choi, G-B 405, 834-1077

E-mail: cine-media@uchicago.edu
World Wide Web: http://www-college.uchicago.edu/FSC/CMS.html

Program of Study

The newly established committee on Cinema and Media Studies, through the college, offers a concentration in Cinema and Media Studies leading to the Bachelor of Arts Degree. This concentration in Cinema and Media Studies provides a framework within which College students can approach film and related media from a variety of historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives. Focusing on the study of the moving image (and its sound accompaniments), the program enables students to analyze how meanings are created through representational devices specific to the medium and its institutions. At the same time, the goal is to situate the cinema (and related media) in broader cultural, social, and aesthetic contexts, such as visual culture and the history of the senses; modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde; narrative theory, poetics, and rhetoric; commercial entertainment forms; leisure and consumer culture; sexuality and gender; constructions of ethnic, racial, and national identities; transnational media production and circulation, globalization, and global media publics.

Students wishing to enter the program should consult with the program coordinator in the spring quarter of their freshman year. Participation in the program must be approved by the program coordinator before registration.

Program Requirements

The concentration requires twelve courses and a B.A. research paper. Course work is divided into a major field specifically concerned with cinema and a minor field focusing on a separate but related area or topic.

Major Field. Of the eight required courses in the major field, students must take two introductory courses, one in methods of film analysis (Cinema and Media Studies 101) and one in modes of film practice (Cinema and Media Studies 102); if possible, these introductory courses should be taken in sequence and by the end of the third year. In the autumn quarter of the fourth year, students are expected to participate in a senior colloquium that helps them conceptualize their B.A. paper and address more advanced questions of methodology and theory. The remaining five courses must be chosen according to the following distribution. Students must choose:

1. two courses in film history (at least one course in a cinema tradition other than mainstream American);

2. two courses dealing with genre (for example, horror film, musical, or experimental film) or individual directors, actors, or stars (one course in this category may be replaced with a course in film/video making); and

3. one course in film theory, media theory, or theories of audiovisual representation.

Minor Field. In addition, students must take a cluster of four courses in a separate area that can be brought to bear on the study of cinema in significant ways. Such clusters could be imagined, for instance, as focusing on other media and art forms (for example, photography, video, the visual arts, architecture, literature, theater, opera, or dance); cross-disciplinary topics or sets of problems (for example the urban environment, violence and pornography, censorship, copyright and industry regulation, concepts of the public sphere, or globalization); or subfields within area studies (for example, East Asian, South Asian, African-American, or Jewish studies) and traditional disciplines, such as history, anthropology/ethnography, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, sociology, or political economy. Students develop these clusters in consultation with the concentration adviser and are expected to write a brief essay explaining the rationale for and coherence of their minor field by February 1 of the third year.

B.A. Research Paper. A B.A. research paper is required of all students in the program. During the spring quarter of their third year, students meet with the concentration adviser (usually the program coordinator) to determine the focus of their B.A. project, a process to be concluded by May 15; they begin reading and research during the summer. During the autumn quarter of the fourth year, they should be prepared to present an outline of their project to the senior colloquium; writing and revising take place during the winter quarter. The final version is due by the fourth week of the quarter in which the student plans to graduate. The B.A. project typically consists of a substantial essay that engages a research topic in the history, theory, and criticism of film and/or other media. In exceptional cases, students may apply to the concentration adviser to substitute a creative project for the essay, provided they have taken at least one course in the respective area of production (e.g., film/video making or screenwriting). Any creative project should include a research component that the student is expected to describe in an accompanying report. Students may choose to register for the B.A. project as a course equivalent to one free-elective credit.

Grading. Students concentrating in Cinema and Media Studies must receive letter grades in all courses required for the concentration. Nonconcentrators may take Cinema and Media Studies courses on a P/N basis, provided that they receive prior consent from the faculty member for the course so graded.

Special Honors. Students who have done outstanding work in the program and have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 or higher may be nominated for special honors. These honors are reserved for the student whose B.A. project shows exceptional intellectual and/or creative merit in the judgment of the first and the second readers, the program coordinator, and the Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division.

Advising. By the beginning of the third year, each student is expected to get his or her program of study approved by both the concentration adviser and the College adviser. For the construction of their minor field, students are encouraged to take courses and consult with members of the resource faculty. Consult the following lists for the names of core and resource faculty members.

Core Faculty

TOM GUNNING, Professor, Department of Art History and the College

MIRIAM HANSEN, Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, Department of English Language & Literature, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

JAMES LASTRA, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and the College

LAURA LETINSKY, Assistant Professor, Committee on the Visual Arts

JOEL M. SNYDER, Professor, Department of Art, Committees on the Visual Arts and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

KATIE TRUMPENER, Associate Professor, Departments of Germanic Studies, History, English Language & Literature, and Comparative Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

YURI TSIVIAN, Professor, Departments of Art History, Comparative Literature, Slavic Languages & Literatures, and the College

REBECCA WEST, Professor, Department of Romance Languages & Literatures and the College

Resource Faculty

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and the College

ARJUN APPADURAI, Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professor, Departments of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, Anthropology, and the College

LEORA AUSLANDER, Associate Professor, Department of History and the College

LAUREN BERLANT, Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and the College

HOMI BHABHA, Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities, Department of English Language & Literature, Art History, and the College

VINCENZO BINETTI, Assistant Professor, Department of Romance Languages & Literatures and the College

CAROL BRECKENRIDGE, Senior Lecturer, Division of the Humanities and the College, Associate Member, Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations

WILLIAM L. BROWN, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and the College

DIPESH CHAKRABARTY, Professor, Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations and the College

JAMES CHANDLER, Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

GEORGE CHAUNCEY, Professor, Department of History and the College

JEAN COMAROFF, Bernard E. and Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Anthropology; Committee on Human Nutrition & Nutritional Biology, Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science & Medicine, and the College; Committee on African & African-American Studies; Chairman, Department of Anthropology

MILTON EHRE, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the College

MARTHA FELDMAN, Assistant Professor, Department of Music and the College

SANDER L. GILMAN, Henry R. Luce Professor in the Liberal Arts of Human Biology, Professor, Departments of Germanic Studies and Psychiatry and the College

NEIL HARRIS, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor, Department of History, Committees on Geographic Studies and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

THOMAS HOLT, James Westfall Thompson Professor, Department of History and the College

RONALD B. INDEN, Professor, Departments of History and South Asian Languages & Civilizations and the College

LOREN KRUGER, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and the College

DAVID LEVIN, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Studies

W. J. T. MITCHELL, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of English Language & Literature and Art History, Committees on the Visual Arts and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

C. M. NAIM, Associate Professor, Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations

DAVID POWELSTOCK, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the College

ERIC L. SANTNER, Harriet and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Modern European Jewish History, Department of Germanic Studies and the College

WILLIAM F. SIBLEY, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations and the College

BARBARA STAFFORD, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Art History and the College

XIAOBING TANG, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations

KATHERINE TAYLOR, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and the College

TAMARA TROJANOWSKA, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the College

TERENCE S. TURNER, Professor, Department of Anthropology and the College

WILLIAM R. VEEDER, Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

MARTHA WARD, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

Courses

101. Introduction to Film I (=ArtH 190, CMS 101, Eng 108, GS Hum 200). PQ: This is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. The first part 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. J. Lastra. Autumn.

102. Introduction to Film II (=ArtH 191, CMS 102, Eng 109, GS Hum 201). PQ: This is the second part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. Building on the skills of formal analysis and knowledge of basic cinematic conventions acquired in the first part, the second part focuses on intertextual and contextual problems, such as those associated with genre, authorship, stars, and various responses to the classical Hollywood film. Modes of film practice studied include documentary, European national cinemas, "art cinema," animation, and various avant-garde movements. Not offered 1998-1999; will be offered 1999-2000.

213. Film and History: The Great War (=CMS 213, Hist 123). This course has two simultaneous goals: to explore the experience of World War I in the United States, and to ask how historians "do" history. To accomplish these goals we read scholarly histories (not only by historians) and watch historic films (fiction as well as nonfiction) to consider what each can tell us about the other, and together what they can tell us about the past and about our own attempts to reconstruct it. G. Klingsporn. Spring.

222. Scandinavian Silent Cinema (=CMS 222, German 262, Norweg 262, Scand 262). This course introduces both the film production of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark during their "golden age" from approximately 1910 to 1930, and the major issues of silent cinema. We view films by directors such as Christensen, Dreyer, Gad, Sjøstrom, and Stiller in light of both stylistic and political issues of silent film, paying particular attention to such themes as the development of narrative techniques and cinematic styles, the cinematic public sphere, the treatment of gender, and the roles of the actor and the director in the process of film production. We consider the relationship between technology, narration, and national community. H. Herzog. Winter.

236. Mastroianni and Keitel: Comparative Masculinities and Ethnicities (=CMS 236, GendSt 285/385, Ital 285/385). PQ: Ital 203 or consent of instructor. Using films in which Mastroianni and Keitel star, we study the diverse concepts of masculinity and ethnicity that these actors have embodied. Theoretical approaches to filmic representations of maleness and ethnic "types," to comparative cultural assumptions and stereotypes regarding men, and to Italian and American styles of filmmaking are employed in the analysis of these stars. All work in English; Italian concentrators read critical materials and write a final paper and a book review in Italian. R. West. Spring.

238. The "Golden Ages" of French Cinema: From Renoir through Godard (=CMS 238, French 277). Between the 1930s and the 1960s, French cinema had two great movements: Poetic Realism and the New Wave. Both movements assumed specific positions concerning the relationship between art and reality, and on film aesthetics. This course focuses on exemplary filmmakers such as Renoir, Duvivier, and Carné for Poetic Realism; and Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, and Varda for the New Wave. We analyze both films and writings by these filmmakers and discuss them in relation to their historical (political, social, and cultural) context and in relation to the organization of film production during the respective periods. We also try to assess their originality by comparing them with some examples of the mainstream production of their time. All work in English; French concentrators must have permission from the B.A. adviser to count this course as a required literature course and must do all work in French. M. Lagny. Spring.

241. Film in India (=Anthro 206/311, CMS 241, Hist 267/367, SoAsia 205/305). This course considers film-related activities from just before Independence (1947) down to the present. Emphasis is placed on the reconstruction of film-related activities that can be taken as life practices from the standpoint of "elites" and "masses," "middle classes," men and women, people in cities and villages, governmental institutions, businesses, and the "nation." The course relies on people's notions of the everyday, festive days, paradise, arcadia, and utopia to pose questions about how people try to realize their wishes and themselves through film. How film practices articulated with colonialism, nationalism, "socialist development," and, now, "free markets" is a major concern. R. Inden. Winter.

246. Cinema as Vernacular Modernism (=CMS 246, Eng 280, GS Hum 207). This course considers exemplary films of the 1920s and 1930s as a form of "popular" or "vernacular modernism:" as aesthetic expressions of (and responses to) the social and cultural experience of modernity and modernization. In addition to a small sample of Hollywood films (e.g., The Crowd, and Gold Diggers of 1933), we discuss films from Soviet Russia (Bed and Sofa), Germany (Diary of a Lost Girl), France (Ménilmontant, Coeur Fidèle), England, and (depending on availability) China and Japan. Readings include texts (Kracauer, Benjamin, Epstein, Dulac, Kuleshov, and Shklovsky; and selections from the magazine Close-Up). M. Hansen. Spring.

247. Left-Wing Art and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s (=ArtH 290/390, CMS 247, ComLit 358, GnSlav 267/367). The 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 six hours a week in addition to scheduled class time. Y. Tsivian. Winter.

262. The Films of Luis Buñuel (=CMS 262, Eng 282/482). This course examines the fifty-year career of Luis Buñuel, focusing on his films, his work in other media, and his relationship to twentieth-century movements, both intellectual and artistic. Beginning with his Surrealist masterpieces of 1929-33, moving through the neglected Spanish comedies of the 1930s, the Mexican films of the 1940s and 1950s, and finally the international productions of the 1960s and 1970s, we concentrate on analyzing Buñuel's characteristic visual, aural, and narrative strategies. Beyond that, we situate his films in relevant aesthetic, cultural, political, and national contexts in an attempt to understand how a career that spans five decades and as many countries can both retain its own internal coherence and yet participate meaningfully in disparate and often incompatible arenas. J. Lastra. Spring.

270. Classical Film Theory (=CMS 270, Eng 283, GS Hum 206). This course examines basic questions associated with the film medium through the writings of some of its earliest and most influential theorists. Beginning with the question of what constitutes a "theoretical" or "philosophical" approach to film, we pursue a series of persistent issues. What is the nature of film's relationship to reality? Are there "essential" features of the medium that determine its form? How do images and editing make meaning? We place writers (such as Vachel Lindsay, Hugo Münsterberg, Sergei Eisenstein, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and André Bazin) in historical and cultural terms, and use their work to frame our own theoretical questions. J. Lastra. Spring.

274. Modernity and the Sense of Things (=CMS 274, Eng 292/692, GendSt 292). This course engages the discourse of modernity as an account of the subject/object relation that foregrounds, on the one hand, the history of the senses, and, on the other, the fate of "things." The course begins with classic sociological accounts of modernity in work by Simmel, Weber, Veblen, and Lukács. We then track some key problems through accounts of the material, cultural, and sensory manifestations of modernity, with a particular focus on how the cinema was seen to crystallize the changed experience of things and people. This includes work by Giedion, Kracauer, Benjamin, Mumford, Stein, Gorky, Epstein, Woolf, Barnes, and Heidegger. M. Hansen, B. Brown. Spring.

275. Theories of the Photographic Image and Films (=CMS 275, COVA 255). PQ: COVA 101, 102, or 100-level ArtH course, or consent of instructor. This course is an introduction and survey of theories concerning photography and cinema. A variety of works by the following authors, among others, is discussed: Stanley Cavell, Erwin Panofsky, André Bazin, Christian Metz, Susan Sontag, Edward Weston, Ernst Gombrich, Nelson Goodman, and John Szarkowski. J. Snyder. Winter.

276. Beginning Photography (=CMS 276, COVA 240). PQ: COVA 101 and 102, or consent of instructor. A camera and light meter are required. Photography affords a relatively simple and accessible means for making pictures. Through demonstration, students are introduced to technical procedures and basic skills, and begin to establish criteria for artistic expression. Possibilities and limitations inherent to the medium are topics of classroom discussion. We investigate the contemporary photograph in relation to its historical and social context. Course work culminates in a portfolio of works exemplary of the student's understanding of the medium. Visits to local exhibitions required. Lab fee $40. Staff. Winter, Spring.

278. Visual Culture (=ArtH 258/358, CMS 278, COVA 254, Eng 126/326, MAPH 343). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH, CMS, or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course explores the fundamental questions in the interdisciplinary study of visual culture: What are the cultural (and, by the same token, natural) components in the structure of visual experience? What is seeing? What is a spectator? What is the difference between visual and verbal representation? How do visual media exert power, elicit desire and pleasure, and construct the boundaries of subjective and social experience in the private and public sphere? How do questions of politics, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity inflect the construction of visual semiosis? W. J. T. Mitchell. Spring.

298. Senior Colloquium. PQ: CMS 101 and 102. Required of all Cinema and Media Studies concentrators. This seminar is designed to provide senior concentrators with a sense of the variety of methods and approaches in the field (such as formal analysis, cultural history, industrial history, reception studies, and psychoanalysis). Students present material relating to their B.A. project, which is discussed in relation to the issues of the course. Y. Tsivian. Autumn.

299. B.A. Essay. PQ: Consent of instructor and program coordinator. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. May not be counted toward distribution requirements for the concentration, but may be counted as a free-elective credit. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.