Fall 2017 Undergraduate Courses

Claudia Calhoun
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class #13755

This course is designed to introduce the basic methods and concepts of cinema studies to new majors. The course aims to help students develop a range of analytical skills that will form the basis of their study of film and other moving-image media they will encounter in cinema studies. By the end of the semester, students will: 1) be fluent in the basic vocabulary of film form; 2) recognize variations of mode and style within the dominant modes of production (narrative, documentary, and experimental); 3) appreciate the relationship between formal analysis and questions of interpretation; and 4) grasp the mechanics of structuring a written argument about a film’s meaning. Lectures and readings provide a detailed introduction to the basic terms of film scholarship, and to some critical issues associated with particular modes of film production and criticism. Screenings introduce students to the historical and international range of production that cinema studies addresses. Recitations provide students with opportunities to review the content of readings and lectures, and to develop their skills of analysis and interpretation in discussion.

CINEMA STUDIES MAJORS and pre-approved minors ONLY.

RECITATIONS
Thursdays
Room 646
Section 002 / 9:30-10:45am, class #13756
Section 003 / 11:00am-12:15pm, class #13757
Section 004 / 12:30-1:45pm, class #13758

Chris Straayer
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class #13759

This course closely examines a variety of theoretical writings concerned with aesthetic, social, and psychological aspects of the medium. Students study the writing of both classical theorists such as Eisenstein and Bazin and contemporary thinkers such as Metz, Dyer, DeLauretis, Baudrillard, and Foucault. Questions addressed range from the nature of cinematic representation and its relationship to other forms of cultural expression to the way in which cinema shapes our conception of racial and gender identity.

CINEMA STUDIES MAJORS ONLY.

RECITATIONS
Mondays
Room 646
Section 002 / 9:30-10:45am, class #13760
Section 003 / 11:00am-12:15pm, class #13761
Section 004 / 12:30-1:45pm, class #13762

Ed Guerrero
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 635
4 points
Class # 20432

This course will explore black stardom and celebrity through varied critical and theoretical lenses and arguments. Concerning black American cinema, such tropes as “double consciousness,” “passing,” social ambivalence, and alienation come to mind. But we will also engage such issues, as the commoditized, digital star persona; the politics and aesthetics of “crossover” appeal; class tensions and consumer hierarchies; as well as issues of sexuality and gender. Our readings and screenings will explore the star personas of such celebrities as Spike Lee, Oprah Winfrey, Jason Holliday, Sidney Poitier, and Halle Berry. As James Baldwin so eloquently put it, we will explore the “smuggled in” realities of black stardom.

CINEMA STUDIES MAJORS ONLY.
Permission code required.

Zhen Zhang
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 635
4 points
Class # 20433

Childhood is a persistent topic of countless films throughout the history of cinema worldwide, with an intended audience not limited to children. The focus of this course is not children’s films per se, but “childhood” in world cinema and in popular culture, discussed from an array of historical and theoretical perspectives. The concerns and topics of the course include: the intimate relationship between early cinema and childhood (and by extension, childhood and modernity); conceptions and representations of childhood in different cinematic (and cultural) traditions and historical periods; ideological critiques and other theoretical models in engaging screen and media portrayals of childhood, including feminism, gender and sexuality studies, and child studies. Weekly screenings will feature early actualities, silent narrative film, musical, documentary, animation, and more. Students are expected to actively take part in discussions and presentations, and complete a final research paper.

CINEMA STUDIES MAJORS ONLY.
Permission code required.

Melissa Phruksachart
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 635
4 points
Class # 14512

The first few months of 2017 saw a resurgence in mass feminist political expression across the globe, from the Women’s March to the International Women’s Day strike. In order to make sense of this present, this course uses film and critical theory to explore the histories of and conditions of possibility for feminist movements, transnationally wrought. Readings may include Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Chandra Mohanty, Ella Shohat, Alison Bechdel, Shulamith Firestone, Laura Mulvey, the Combahee River Collective, Kara Keeling, Patricia White’s Women’s Cinema, World Cinema, and the 2014 Camera Obscura issue “The Place of the Contemporary Female Director.” Films may include the work of Julie Dash, Cheryl Dunye, Ana Lily Amirpour, Frances Negrón Muntaner, Mira Nair, Pratibha Parmar, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Thirza Cuthand, Lizzie Borden, Kasi Lemmons, Lucrecia Martel, Celine Sciamma, Amma Asante, Beyonce, Lynne Ramsey, Shu Lea Cheang, Nia Dinata, Aurora Guerrero, Zero Chou, Cherien Dabis, Rea Tajiri, & Gurinder Chadha. Pending the size of our class, assignments will include weekly seminar papers, an oral presentation, and final paper.

CINEMA STUDIES MAJORS ONLY.
Permission code required.

Claudia Calhoun
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors): Class #20529
Section 002 (non-majors): Class #20530

This course analyzes and contextualizes the complex, ambitious television series Mad Men (2007-2015), looking at Mad Men as both a televisual text and a window onto the past. We will talk about the series and its place within television's "new golden age," analyzing its narrative form and visual style. In addition to looking closely at the series itself, we will read and view historical materials from the era that Mad Men fictionalized, interrogating its representation of the 1960s. The course pays particular attention to how the series engages with historical and contemporary issues around gender and race, to better understand what Mad Men teaches us about the 1960s -- and how, in looking back, it helps us to better understand the present-day. In-class time will include screenings, lecture, and discussion. Out-of-class assignments include readings, additional screenings, and frequent writing.

Zhen Zhang
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors): Class #20531
Section 002 (non-majors): Class #20532

This course traces the origins of Chinese cinema and its transformation and diversification into a multi-faceted, polycentric trans-regional phenomenon in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan up to the 1960s. We study a number of film cultures in Shanghai/China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, including the complex web of their historical kinship ties, and place them within the regional and global contexts of modernity, revolution, nation-building, and attendant socio-cultural transformations. To investigate these unique yet interrelated film cultures together raises the question of national cinema as a unitary object of study, while suggesting new avenues for analyzing the complex genealogy of a cluster of urban, regional, commercial or state-sponsored film industries within a larger comparative and transnational framework. Topics related to screenings and discussions include urban modernity, exhibition and spectatorship, transition to sound, stardom and propaganda, gender and ethnic identities, and genre formation and hybridization.

Lukas Brasiskis
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors): Class # 20775
Section 002 (non-majors): Class # 20776

From early moving-image experiments by Étienne-Jules Marey and Edward Muybridge to Hollywood movies, modern avant-garde works and contemporary video sharing websites, cinematic images of non-human living creatures have consistently been produced for a variety of purposes. In this course we will examine various cinematic representations of animals, understanding them within the larger cultural, artistic, technological and philosophical contexts. Students will be presented with a wide range of sources, from literary and theoretical texts to film directors' notes on the appealing and attractive, as well as the appalling and unnerving characteristics of the forms of life other than human as they are portrayed on screen. Screenings and film clips will consist of Youtube clips, cartoons, fiction, documentary, and experimental films, including the works of filmmakers such as Robert Bresson, Charles Burnett, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Denis Côté, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Ang Lee, Jean Painlevé, Bill Viola, and Frederick Wiseman, among others. The three parts of the course will introduce motivations for and consequences of representation of animals as (1) anthropomorphized film characters, (2) alluring symbols of suppressed human desires, and (3) wild and incomprehensible others.

Linnéa Hussein
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors): Class # 20435
Section 002 (non-majors): Class # 20436

This course studies film history through the lens of US censorship practices from the beginning of the sound era until today. By incorporating primary sources such as contemporary reviews and original trailers, we will examine trends in censorship and Hollywood’s relationship to reigning political agendas. In the first part of the course, starting with pre-code Hollywood, we will work our way from the rise and fall of the Hays’ code to McCarthyism and the Red Scare to the current MPAA rating system. In the second part, we will examine case studies of banned or X-rated films, involving topics such as obscenity, violence, or blasphemy. In these discussions we will pay special attention to a critical understanding of the socio-political and economic reasons for banning, censoring, or blacklisting a movie. To discuss whether there are cases in which banning is not only justified but maybe morally defensible, we will look at cases of retroactive banning and consider the pros and cons for keeping racially dismissive films such as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation or Disney’s Song of the South in circulation.

Feng-Mei Heberer
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors): Class # 20533
Section 002 (non-majors): Class # 20534

This course surveys cinematic developments in German film from the 1990s to the present-day. In particular we will analyze how the rising popularity of particular genres, auteurs, and aesthetic as well as narrative movements relate to the nation’s struggle for identity following reunification and in light of new challenges posed by European integration and globalization. How does German cinema reflect and respond to ongoing national anxieties? How does it represent history, and how does it imagine its future? Case studies include the post-wall German comedy, the diasporic wave, the “Berlin School,” and the recent turn to Hollywood as both production partner and entrance into the global film market.

Dana Polan
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Cantor 102
4 points
Class # 13763

This course offers a broad survey of American cinema from its beginnings (and even its pre-history) up to 1960.  While the emphasis will be on the dominant, narrative fiction film, there will be attention to other modes of American cinema such as experimental film, animation, shorts, and non-fiction film.  The course will look closely at films themselves -- how do their styles and narrative structures change over time? -- but also at contexts:  how do films reflect their times?  how does the film industry develop? what are the key institutions that had impact on American film over its history?  We will also attend to the role of key figures in film's history:  from creative personnel (for example, the director or the screenwriter) to industrialists and administrators, to censors to critics and to audiences themselves.  The goal will be to provide an overall understanding of one of the most consequential of modern popular art forms and of its particular contributions to the art and culture of our modernity.

RECITATIONS
Wednesdays, Room 646
Section 003 / 11:00am-12:15pm, Class #13764
Section 004 / 12:30-1:45pm, Class #13765
Section 005 / 2:00-3:15pm, Class #13766

Tanya Goldman
Mondays, 6:20-9:50pm
Cantor 102
4 points
Class #13767

This course surveys the major aesthetic, cultural, and technological developments in global cinema from its origins in the late nineteenth century to 1960. The course will explore a selection of landmark works from France, Germany, Sweden, the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, China, India, and Mexico through a variety of frameworks—as a technology, industrial development, mode of political expression, and as participants in debates about the nature of the moving image as an artistic and narrative form. The course will introduce elements of cinematic language, as well as theoretical texts, related to influential movements including German Expressionism, Soviet montage, the first avant-garde, documentary film, French Poetic Realism, and Italian Neorealism, among many others. In-class screenings will include works by Georges Méliès, Victor Sjöström, Robert Weine, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Luis Buñuel, Fritz Lang, Jean Renoir, Leni Riefenstahl, Emilio Fernandez, Roberto Rossellini, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu, Alain Resnais, and others.

RECITATIONS
Tuesdays, Room 646
Section 003 / 11:00am-12:15pm, Class #13768
Section 004 / 12:30-1:45pm, Class #13769
Section 005 / 2:00-3:15pm, Class #13770

Eric Kohn
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 670
4 points
Class # 14194

This course demystifies the professional and intellectual possibilities of film criticism in the contemporary media landscape through a historical foundation. Students will write reviews and critical essays as well as produce analyses of existing work, all of which should aid those interested in pursuing further opportunities in criticism and/or developing a deeper understanding of the craft. Through a combination of readings, discussions and screenings, we will explore the expansive possibilities of criticism with relation to global film culture, the role of the Internet, distinctions between academic and popular criticism, and the impact of the practice on the film and television industries itself. We will cover the influence of major figures in the profession with course readings and discussions based around work by major figures including Bazin, Ebert, Haskell, Farber, Kael, Sarris, Sontag, Tyler and many others. Major critics will visit the course to provide additional context. Emerging forms of critical practices, including podcasts and video essays, will also figure prominently, as will discussions surrounding the value of entertainment reporting and other related forms of journalism. In addition to engaging in classroom discussions, students will be expected to write weekly reviews, pitch essay ideas, file on deadline during certain courses and complete a final research paper. 

NOTE: Seats in this class are very limited.  Cinema Studies Undergraduates ONLY.

Ken Dancyger
Mondays, 6:20-9:00pm
Room 109
4 points
Class #14418
      
This class is designed to help the students analyze a film script. Premise, character population, plot and genre, dialogue, foreground, background, and story will all be examined. Using feature films, we will highlight these script elements rather than the integrated experience of the script, performance, directing, and editing elements of the film. Assignments will include three script analyses.

NOTE: Seats in this class are very limited.  Cinema Studies Undergraduates ONLY.

CINE-UT 900
1-4 points (variable)
Class #13772

CINE-UT 902
1-4 points (variable)
Class #13773

A student wishing to conduct independent research for credit must obtain approval from a faculty member who will supervise an independent study for up to 4 credits. This semester-long study is a project of special interest to the student who, with the supervising faculty member, agrees on a course of study and requirements.  The proposed topic for an Independent Study project should not duplicate topics taught in departmental courses.  This is an opportunity to develop or work on a thesis project. To register, you must present a signed “Independent Study Form” at the department office when you register.  This form must be completely filled out, detailing your independent study project.  It must have your faculty sponsor’s signature (whomever you have chosen to work with - this is not necessarily your advisor) indicating their approval.

CINE-UT 950
1-4 points (variable)
Class #14362

CINE-UT 952
1-4 points (variable)
Class #14363

A student wishing to pursue an internship must obtain the internship and submit the Learning Contract before receiving a permission code.  All internship grades will be pass/fail.

Yong Woo Lee
Wednesdays, 2:00-4:45pm
7 E. 12th St, Room 134
4 points
Class # 20700

This course aims to introduce modern Korean society and culture in relation to media and cultural studies scholarship and its socio-cultural contexts. In particular, we will examine the meaning of media and culture and its social changes in contemporary Korea through exploring various emerging trends and cultural studies as methodological tool within modern and contemporary Korean issues. Global popularity of Korean culture and the transnational Hallyu boom continue to percolate beyond Asia and inspire various critical questions regarding trans-nationalism, cultural imperialism and musical authenticity and hybridity. The course readings engage wide range of various issues and arguments of media and cultural studies scholarship as methodological tools; such as cultural representation (Stuart Hall), meaning of hegemony (Gramsci and John Storey), cultural industry/economy and globalism of media (Arjun Appadurai, Paul Gilroy), post colonialism (Homi Bhabha, Arif Dirlik), audience of mass media and fandom culture (John Fiske, Dick Hebdige), gender and queer issues (Judith Butler), and then further focus on the specific context of Korea culture including the pivotal notions of colonial modernity, Japanese imperialism, cultural hegemony in colonial Korea, meaning of Americanization, issues of popular memory and decolonization discourses, nationalism and globalization (segyehwa) and Korean Wave, body/gender/sexuality / LGBT issue in Korean Media culture, cyber culture and internet memes, transnationalism and diaspora issues and its aftermath. We actively discuss various audio-visual artifacts including Korean news, music video, films, TV dramas, and pop music in each class in order to understand better the texts and contexts within the historical and sociocultural paradigm of recent sociology, media/communication studies scholarship.

This course originates in East Asian Studies and will count towards the Asian Film and Media Minor.

Nilita Vachani
Mondays, 6:20-9:00pm
Room 003
3 points
Class # 19087

This course explores the blurred boundaries that have always existed between documentary and fiction filmmaking. Intended to widen the horizons of the creative filmmaker and film student we will analyze major documentary
traditions with a specific focus on narrative techniques used in the telling of powerful stories. Alongside, we will examine contemporary fiction filmmaking that has broken new grounds by a creative absorption and exploitation of the documentary method. The course consists of film analysis of a variety of documentary tropes, interviews with filmmakers, readings in documentary theory and case studies of seminal films. Students write theoretical papers and have the opportunity to work in groups to propose a ‘docfiction’ idea of their own. This course will provide a firm grounding in documentary history and theory, through the lens of the complicated nature of ‘truth’ in documentary practice.

NOTE: This course is 3 credits, originating in Undergraduate Film and Television.

COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY.
LIMITED SEATS.

Ed Guerrero
Thursdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
4 points
Section 002: Class # 21067

This course explores the rise and fall of Hollywood's "Blaxploitation" period and genre. As well we will look at the genre's continuing influence on American commercial cinema and popular culture. We will locate the fifty-odd films of the period in the cultural, political, ‘black identity and liberation' contexts at the end of the Civil Rights Movement, and at the rise of the Black Power and Black Aesthetics movements of the mid-‘70s. Also, we will explore what Blaxploitation was ‘saying' to (and about) its audience; how Blaxploitation draws upon black literary convention; the black crime novel; and black music and film noir. We will also examine Blaxploitation's niche in, and contribution to, Hollywood's political economy, and how Blaxploitation's aesthetic and cultural conventions, and formula have crossed over to address a broad popular audience in a number of popular contemporary films and popular cultural expressions.

Email Professor Ed Guerrero at ed.guerrero@nyu.edu for permission to enroll.

Marco Williams
Mondays, 6:20-9:00pm
Room 108
4 points
Class # 5635

This course examines documentary principles, methods, and styles. Both the function and the significance of the documentary in the social setting, and the ethics of the documentary are considered.

Howard Besser
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
4 points
Class # 5637

This course introduces all aspects of the field, contextualizes them, and shows how they fit together. It will discuss the media themselves (including the technology, history, and contextualization within culture, politics, and economics) Topics include: conservation and preservation principles, organization and access, daily practice with physical artifacts, restoration, curatorship and programming, legal issues and copyright, and new media issues. Students will learn the importance of other types of materials (manuscripts, correspondence, stills, posters, scripts, etc.). Theories of collecting and organizing (as well as their social meanings) will be introduced.

For interested juniors and seniors, email tisch.preservation@nyu.edu for permission to enroll. Sophomores will be considered on a case by case basis.

Gregory Cram
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 646
4 points
Class # 5639

With the advent of new technologies, film producers and distributors and managers of film and video collections are faced with a myriad of legal and ethical issues concerning the use of their works or the works found in various collections. The answers to legal questions are not always apparent and can be complex, particularly where different types of media are encompassed in one production. When the law remains unclear, a risk assessment, often fraught with ethical considerations, is required to determine whether a production can be reproduced, distributed or exhibited without infringing the rights of others. What are the various legal rights that may encumber moving image material? What are the complex layers of rights and who holds them? Does one have to clear before attempting to preserve or restore a work? How do these rights affect downstream exhibition and distribution of a preserved work? And finally, what steps can be taken in managing moving image collections so that decisions affecting copyrights can be taken consistently? This course will help students make intelligent decisions and develop appropriate policies for their institution.

For interested juniors and seniors, email tisch.preservation@nyu.edu for permission to enroll. Sophomores will be considered on a case by case basis.

Dan Streible
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
4 points
Section 002: Class # 20800

This course introduces advanced undergraduates and graduate students to the study of nonfiction film. It explores the history and historiography of nonfiction cinema, including – but not limited to – documentary film. We will examine the established milestones of the international tradition of documentary – from the romances of Robert Flaherty to propaganda projects of the 1930s and 1940s, through cinema verité of the 1960s and the activist, institutional, and personal styles of recent decades. However, the course also places documentary in a context that includes forms of nonfiction typically segregated from the traditional conception of documentary. Some are familiar forms, such as travelogues and newsreels. Others have been neglected by scholars until recently: sponsored, industrial, educational, and science films; home movies and other amateur films; outtakes and other archival footage. Viewed both as discrete works of cinema and as artifacts of social and cultural significance, such orphaned films pose problems of history, culture, and aesthetics that challenge traditional conceptions of making, viewing, and studying films. We will read primary sources, as well as scholarly approaches to the history of nonfiction film and to the possible uses and meanings of this vast archive. Students will participate actively in discussions, make in-class presentations, and complete historical research projects on topics developed in consultation with the instructor. (Graduate students will complete more in-depth research.)

Email Professor Dan Streible at dan.streible@nyu.edu for permission to enroll.

Ludovic Cortade
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 4:55-6:10pm
25 W. 4th Street, C-20
4 points
Class # 22577

The course is an introduction to the history of French cinema from the origins to the present day through the lens of varied aspects of French civilization (history, literature, class, gender, ethnicity). The movements we will be studying include: Earlycinema, Surrealism and the Avant-Garde, Poetic Realism, The “New Wave”, Political Modernism, “Heritage Cinema” and Globalization. Conducted in English. No background in French or Cinema Studies required.