Fall 2021 Undergraduate Courses

Josslyn Luckett
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 10 / class # 15031
4 points

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
Tuesdays
Room 646
                                            Class #       
002:  8:00-9:15am                  15032
003:  9:30-10:45am                15033
004:  11:00am-12:15pm          15034

Chris Straayer
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 16 / class # 15035
4 points

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. 

Prerequisite: Intro to Cinema Studies or Expressive Cultures: Film.

Recitations
Mondays
Room 646
                                            Class #       
002:  8:00-9:15am                  15036
003:  9:30-10:45am                15037
004:  11:00am-12:15pm          15038

Toby Lee
Fridays, 10:00am-2:00pm
Room 652
CINE-UT 702 / class # 23846
4 points

This course centers the figure of woman -- multiply understood as embodied, discursive, performed, strategic, subversive or subverted -- in a revisionist examination of documentary history and theory. How might our understanding of the documentary, its particular epistemology, & its central concepts be re-calibrated through a shift of focus onto gender and sexual difference, variably behind or in front of the camera, on or in front of the screen? Multiple generations of feminist and queer theory, plus post-humanist and new materialist perspectives, are brought to bear on the practices and discourses of documentary film & video.

Permission code required to register. Request a permission code here. Film Theory is strongly recommended as a prerequisite, unless you have instructor approval.

Zhen Zhang
Wednesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 635
CINE-UT 707 / class # 15802
4 points

In many Asian societies still heavily dominated by patriarchal traditions, women filmmakers are more likely overshadowed by dominant or “successful” male auteurs, as well as domestic or imported mainstream cinema. This results in their limited exposure at home and in international arenas. This seminar delves into comparative studies on the cultures, societies, industries, and technological changes behind the emergence of women filmmakers in Asia and those with Asian heritage living and working in the diaspora. While being mindful of the differences in terms of national cinema traditions, languages, cultural values, and feminist discourses, we will study a number of works by women in relation to changing notions and practices regarding gender, sexuality, human rights, race, ethnicity, migration, technology, the environment, and so on.  While the focus will be mostly on contemporary filmmakers operating within a more interconnected world in the last four decades, the course will also try to trace a longer historical view by considering a few women pioneers in the early decades of Asian and Asian-American film history. Screenings include works by Esther Eng, Christine Choy & Renee Tajima-Pena, Grace Lee, Mira Nair, Clara Law, Xiaolu Guo, Boo Ji-young, Lulu Wang, and more. Students are encouraged and expected to research figures and works outside the syllabus coverage. Together we will start building a database on the subject.

Permission code required to register. Request a permission code here. Film Theory is strongly recommended as a prerequisite, unless you have instructor approval.

Marina Hassapopoulou
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 710 / class # 15730
4 points

Science fiction has been fueling the philosophical imagination for centuries, and many of its thought experiments (such as space/time travel, cloning, and super-intelligence) have prefigured significant scientific and technological breakthroughs. Advancements in bioengineering, prosthetics, mass communication, ubiquitous computing, virtual reality, data-surveillance, and artificial intelligence have further intensified the question of what it means to be human in the digital age. This course will explore the human condition through contemporary sci-fi cinema (mostly late 1990s-present, with references to earlier works), particularly films that reflect on the impact of technology on (post) human identity. Technology will be defined in a diverse and interdisciplinary scope ranging from engineering and digital media to medicine and ethics. We will consider sci-fi films not only as speculative thought experiments, but also as a complex hybrid genre that tackles ethical and philosophical debates about contemporary society. A diverse selection of sci-fi films will be analyzed through several critical, philosophical and techno-scientific lenses including: trans/post/anti-humanism, bioethics, biopower, technology, animal studies, queer theory, memory and identity, disability studies, cyborg theory, time philosophies, surveillance, digital media theory, Afrofuturism, (post)race and (post)gender theory, historiography, phenomenology, ecocriticism, necropolitics, and border sci-fi. Screenings include recent films from Hollywood, international, co-produced, experimental, and independent science fiction. Assigned readings, extended bibliographies, and their corresponding films/media have been intentionally selected to provide an interdisciplinary focus that aims to introduce students to multiple intellectual frameworks and current trends for studying the “human” in all its trans/post/anti/other iterations.

Permission code required to register. Request a permission code here. Film Theory is strongly recommended as a prerequisite, unless you have instructor approval.

Raymond Tsang
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 320
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / class # 21238
Non-majors: Section 002 / class # 21239
4 points

Global martial arts cinema will cover the film form and film sense of the martial arts genre in the world. Taken as a popular genre, martial arts cinemas apparently are separated from art and aesthetics. In this course, martial arts cinema will be understood as a site to connect different filmmakers in the world who choreograph action into narratives that offer kinesthetic effects. Long shot, montage, slow motion, saturated color tone and wire are used aesthetically by them to provide action with expressiveness and impact. The course will examine martial arts films with perspectives of film forms, narrative and genre makeover in other contexts in order to understand the nature of martial arts films across the globe.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Dominic Clarke
Mondays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 420
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / class # 21241
Non-majors: Section 002 / class # 21242
4 points

While the 1960s have often been thought of as the seminal decade in American film, it wasn’t until the 1970s that we would see significant changes in Hollywood filmmaking. This course will explore American cinema during a decade that experienced massive shifts in American culture and politics. In addition to the long-lasting effects of events such as Vietnam, Watergate, and the oil crisis, the studio system was seemingly in its final death throes. In the midst of this change and upheaval appeared arguably some of the most innovate filmmaking to come out of the American system in decades.

This course fulfills the American Cinema requirement.

Feng-Mei Heberer
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 488
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / class # 21244
Non-majors: Section 002 / class # 21245
4 points

This undergraduate course explores transnational Asian media cultures in the “digital age.” We will examine how digital technologies – from the digital camera to social media to the Internet – have changed habits of media consumption, production, and representation; and how they have enabled new aesthetic, social, and political movements. We will illuminate the connection between these changes and new movements with historical struggles over power, money, land, and the future. Case studies may include orientalist representations in sci-fi films; augmented reality games from Japan; undersea networks in the Pacific; Pandaman memes in China; and media piracy in India. 

Limited seats available.

Students must be present at first class session, no exception.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Hamidreza Nassiri
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 542
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / class # 21247
Non-majors: Section 002 / class # 21248
4 points

Description coming soon.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Nate Brennan
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 50 / class # 15039
4 points

This course provides a survey of American cinema from its origins in the late-nineteenth century to 1960. Beginning with the early development of cinema as a novelty entertainment, we will trace the origins and expansion of the American film industry and explore the ways in which filmmakers utilized and developed the formal qualities of cinema. Although we will pay particular attention to the development of the classical Hollywood cinema – examining specifically sociological challenges and technological innovations – we shall also explore alternative modes of film practice ranging from the production and reception of non-Hollywood independent, race and exploitation films to the development of other forms of cinema such as animation, short films and documentaries. 

Recitations
Thursdays
Room 646
                                            Class #       
002:  8:00-9:15am                  15040
003:  9:30-10:45am                15041
004:  11:00am-12:15pm          15042

This course fulfills the American Cinema requirement.

Alexander Davis
Thursdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 55 / class # 15043
4 points

As we spin deeper into the 21st century it seems we are only living in increasingly complicated and complex times built from increasingly dense and intertwined histories. To flip through a newspaper means to be constantly confronted with the entrenched legacies of centuries of colonialism, political restructurings resulting from two world wars and numerous revolutions, and the evergrowing consequences of industrialization and modernization, themselves coming from rapidly changing capitalist practices. This course will attempt to make sense of a sliver of these issues by investigating their development in the first half of the 20th century through the lens of their relationship to media. As processes like postwar reconstruction, urbanization, and modernization wore on, cinema was there to mediate their experiences for vast spectators of the newly cinemagoing public. We will thus examine a wide range of national cinemas and film movements from the beginnings of cinema in order to see how technological and aesthetic developments in the medium allowed for new ways to process different social reorganizations. For example, we will examine how the intensely convoluted stories of film serials with near-omnipotent villains might correspond to the birth and rise of immensely complex and powerful corporations. We’ll also consider how innovations in film form and technology allowed filmmakers to communicate important ideologies to audiences in tense political times, namely the World War II and the SinoJapanese War. Similarly, a cross-cultural unit on postwar modernization will interrogate how individuals’ relationship to their class changed with aggressively developing economies. Though much of the class will be limitingly constructed around case-studies of national industries, we will have a constant eye on the inherent internationalism of many of the course’s topics. For instance, though we’ll see how avant-garde strategies were adopted for political purposes primarily via the Russian Revolution, we will also examine how they were used to further feminist cinema in France. Similarly, in looking at changes to rural/urban living in the 1950s, we will simultaneously examine how modernity seemed to offer opportunities, albeit frustrating ones, to those living.

Recitations
Wednesdays
Room 646
                                            Class #       
002:  8:00-9:15am                  15044
003:  9:30-10:45am                15045
004:  11:00am-12:15pm          15046

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Eric Kohn
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 600 / class # 15374
4 points

This course demystifies the professional and intellectual possibilities of film criticism in the contemporary media landscape through a historical foundation. Students will write reviews & 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 themselves. We will cover the influence of major figures in the profession with course readings and discussions based around work by major figures including Ebert, Haskell, Farber, Kael, Sarris, Sontag, and many others. Major critics will visit the course to provide additional context. Emerging forms of critical practices, including podcasts & 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 essay. 

Seats in this class are very limited. 

Cinema Studies Undergraduates ONLY.

CINE-UT 900 / Class # 15047      1-4 points variable
CINE-UT 902 / Class # 15048      1-4 points variable

A student wishing to conduct independent research for credit must obtain approval from a full-time faculty member in the Department of Cinema Studies 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 submit an Independent Study Form. Once the information from your form is verified by your faculty supervisor, you will receive a permission code.

CINE-UT 950 / Class # 15503      1-4 points variable
CINE-UT 952 / Class # 15504      1-4 points variable

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.  

Eleftheria Astrinaki
Thursdays / 2:30-4:00pm
KJCC Room 301
CINE-UT 128 / class # 24997
4 points

In a moment in which the world is beset with crises of all kinds, fourteen films and one book will guide our effort to think about fascism, perhaps the vaguest of all political terms, but one that is presently increasing in circulation around the globe. Using Robert Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism as a kind of lens through which to begin analyzing cinematic responses to fascism in different countries, we will evaluate the way in which these films either follow or exceed his framework for understanding the rise of fascism. We will consider fascism beyond its classic manifestations in Italian fascism and German Nazism and look at the forms it has taken from Latin America to the Middle and Far East. We will also look at primary sources on filmmaking in order to study how formal techniques support the particular political perspective of each film considered. The course will also seek to think about the relation between the way in which fascism—its origins, its power, and its appeal—is depicted in these several films and its more contemporary versions today. By looking at these different instances of fascism, we will ask about what makes fascism fascism.

Limited seats.

This section open to Cinema Studies BA only. All others register under HEL-UA 140.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Kenneth Dancyger
Thursdays / 3:30-6:10pm
Room 109
CINE-UT 146 / class # 15529
4 points

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.

Limited seats available. This section open to Cinema Studies BA only.

Stefano Albertini
Mondays & Wednesdays, 9:30-10:45
Casa Italiana Auditorium
CINE-UT 235 / class # 21569
4 points

Studies representation of Italian history through the medium of film from ancient Rome through the Risorgimento. Issues to be covered throughout include the use of filmic history as a means of forging national identity. This class will be taught in English.

This section open to Cinema Studies BA only. All others register under ITAL-UA.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Ludovic Cortade
Fridays, 12:30-3:00pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 239 / class # 21237
4 points

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: Early cinema, 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. 

Limited seats.

Open to Cinema Studies BA only. All others register under FREN-UA.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Dana Polan
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
CORE-UA 750

Howard Hawks was a consummate director of action film. Working in genres such as the western, the war film, the detective story, and the adventure tale, Hawks crafted engaging narratives of men on a mission working together, their endeavor externalized into dramas of physicality, of bodies on the line, and rendered through a clean, tight cinema focused on movement, men’s corporeal craft, and team-work. This body of work is balanced, or perhaps even challenged, by a set of other Hawks films focusing on energetic, adventurous women who subvert masculine supremacy and even show up men as infantile about violence, rough play, and machismo.  A musical like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes shows weak men at the mercy of over-the-top powerful women (Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe), while a screwball comedy like I Was a Male War Bride centers on a demasculinized man (Cary Grant) who spends much of the film in drag. We examine these contrasts in Howard Hawks’ films: masculine action versus feminine challenges to male empowerment, stories of action versus critiques of violence as simplistic solution. The content of Hawks’ films is also considered against issues of style and cinematic expression: what resources of crisp story-telling does he employ to convey tales of men in action, and how are these undone in the comedies and musicals? Looking at Hawks’ specific place in the Hollywood studio system, we see him as a case study of how American narrative film functioned thematically and stylistically as popular art.

This course is offered through the College Core Curriculum and fulfills the Introductory course requirement for CAS majors. Please see the College Core Curriculum website for more information.

Robert Stam
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-GT 1513-002 / class # 23040
4 points

This course offers an historical and critical overview of the French New Wave. Along with examining the philosophical underpinnings of the movement in philosophical existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir), the artistic underpinnings in modernism, and the theoretical underpinnings in the film theory/criticism of Cahiers du Cinema, we will examine key films and directors. We will explore the work of the three core groups that together formed the New Wave, notably 1) the Cahiers critic-directors (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer); 2) the Left Bank directors (Resnais, Duras, Varda, Marker); and 3) Cinema Verite (Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin), along with 4) precursors like Jean-Pierre Melville and Roger Vadim, and 5) mavericks like Jacques Demy and Louis Malle. While we will focus largely on the films themselves, we will also situate New Wave films within a broader artistic, historical, and social context. Some key themes in the course will be: first-person auteur cinema; artistic modernism and the New Wave; the relation between film and the other arts; the revolution in film language; the question of adaptation; treatment of love, romance, and adultery; representations of race, gender and sexuality; the theory of style and aesthetics; the impact of Brecht; the hauntologies of war, collaboration, and colonialism; and the political changes, reflected in film, that led to the near-revolution of May 1968 and to dramatic changes in the film world.

The course will approach the New Wave through 1) the screening of a chronologically arranged series of feature films, mainly from the key 1958-1968 period; 2) the reading of critical and theoretical texts; and 3) the analysis of short clips from other films by the major directors or related to broader cultural themes. The goal of the course is for students to gain an overall sense of the historical importance and social resonances of the New Wave, an awareness of the characteristic styles and themes of the key directors, and an understanding of some of the theories that circulated around such films.

Interested undergraduates should email the professor for permission to register.

Juana Suárez
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-GT 1800 / class # 7209
4 points

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.

Students outside of the Moving Image Archiving & Preservation (MIAP) MA Program: please email MIAP Academic Program Manager Jess Cayer at tisch.preservation@nyu.edu with your N-ID number to request enrollment.

Please wait to email for Fall 2021 registration until after Albert opens for registration on Monday, May 24.

Gregory Cram
Wednesdays, 6:30-9:30pm
Room 670
CINE-GT 1804 / class # 7211
4 points

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.

Students outside of the Moving Image Archiving & Preservation (MIAP) MA Program: please email MIAP Academic Program Manager Jess Cayer at tisch.preservation@nyu.edu with your N-ID number to request enrollment.

Please wait to email for Fall 2021 registration until after Albert opens for registration on Monday, May 24.

Laura Harris
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-GT 2021-002 / class # 23043
4 points

This class will consider the ways various filmmakers attempt to reinvent film practice in the 60s and 70s, in a context marked by student protests, third world revolution movements, sexual liberation, feminism, and other forms of insurgency.  It will not be a comprehensive survey of the now canonical avant-garde works of the period (though we will look at excerpts from many other landmark films and there will be plenty of opportunities to view more, individually or together in class).  We will linger instead in a few notable, sometimes problematic experiments in which filmmaking intermingles with social movements and with political theater and performance art to reapproach notions of staging, recording, editing, disseminating and viewing.  We will likely also consider some unedited footage and some recent works that look back on that period and remix and redeploy material generated then.  How do these experiments and/or their failures open up new possibilities for film and the social scenes or movements these experiments emerge out of and help shape?  What kinds of film forms do these experiments generate?  What new theoretical insights?  What might be the value of revisiting this “dated” material now?

Interested undergraduates should email the professor for permission to register.