Fall 2026 Undergraduate Courses

Toby Lee
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 10 / Class # 15370
4 points

This course introduces students to the language of cinema and to critical tools for discussing and writing about film and video, in preparation for more advanced classes in the Department of Cinema Studies or related fields. The primary goal of the course is for students to develop critical and formal analytical skills, so that they may read and interpret a variety of films, both narrative and non-narrative. Through screenings, readings, discussions and assignments, students will gain a foundational understanding of the relationship between film form, style and meaning, as well as exposure to key concepts in film theory and familiarity with major movements in film history. We will examine how movies function aesthetically, how they are meaningful for their audiences, and how they operate in different social and cultural contexts, considering works from a range of periods, places and styles. 

By the end of the semester, the aim is for students to be fluent in the basic vocabulary of film form and film style; to write cogently and critically about films, advancing original arguments based on close analysis; and to be more critically aware of how visual media operate in a variety of social and historical contexts.

Cinema Studies majors and pre-approved minors only.

Recitations
Wednesdays
Room 674
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am            15371
003:  10:45am-12:00pm    15372

Nathaniel Brennan
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 16 / Class # 15373
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.  

Cinema Studies majors only.

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

Recitations
Tuesdays
Room 670
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am            15374
003:  10:45am-12:00pm    15375

Antonia Lant
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 635
CINE-UT 700 / Class # 21898
4 points

This class examines a small number of films in great detail with the intention of enhancing student comprehension of the multiple levels at which films are made and engage us. Among the film scenes that we may analyze are examples taken from: Touch of Evil (1958), Do the Right Thing (1989), In the Mood for Love (2000), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Run, Lola, Run (1998), Fish Tank (2009), Whisky (2004), Power of the Dog (2021), and Gilda (1946). The course encourages the intensive, and comparative study of film, and concentrates on a discrete number of tasks: the formal analysis of the sound and image tracks; examination of the shape of the scenario and the segmentation of the narrative; consideration of techniques of stylistic analysis; and the methods by which to aggregate and evaluate a film’s surrounding documents, such as studio papers, posters, blogs, trailers, and critical reviews. Students will acquire vocabulary and tools through which to describe the textual patterns and forces by which a film produces its meanings and effects. As a key part of the course, each student will closely analyze an individual film that they have chosen, and give a final presentation on their findings.

Cinema Studies majors only. Prerequisite: Film Theory

Permission code required to register. Request a permission code here.

Michael B. Gillespie
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 652
CINE-UT 707 / Class # 17344
4 points

If genre is a discourse and not a strict category, how might shifting our focus from an exclusively American sense of film genre provide for an appreciation of different ideas of culture, nation, history and/or historiography, politics, and aesthetics? Focusing on contemporary cinema and film genres such as speculative fiction/science fiction, comedy, the musical, noir, the romance, the western, and horror, the class centers the distinct ways that film genre is enacted in a range of global cinemas and contexts. Films may include Good Manners (Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, 2017), Border (Ali Abbasi, 2018), Atlantics (Mati Diop, 2019), The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2019), Titane (Julia Ducournau, 2021), Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013), The Settlers (Felipe Gálvez Haberle, 2023), Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019), The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015), Portrait of a Lady of Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019), La Llorona (Jayro Bustamante, 2019), The Handmaiden (Park Chan-Wook, 2016), and Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016).

Cinema Studies majors only. Prerequisite: Film Theory

Permission code required to register. Request a permission code here.

Juan Velásquez
Mondays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 30
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 21855
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 21864
4 points

This course dives into the works of three groundbreaking European queer auteurs: Chantal Akerman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Pedro Almodóvar. By analyzing their distinctive styles, narrative strategies, and recurring themes, we will discover how these revolutionary directors challenged conventional norms of gender, sexuality, and cinematic form. Akerman's austere feminist gestures, Fassbinder's cruel melodramas, and Almodóvar's fervent spectacles will be the launching pads to ask important questions about the history of queer representation in Europe cinema while critically engaging with two major strands of film theory: auteur and queer. Our journey through the work of three influential figures will allow us to learn about the turbulent histories of postwar France, Germany, Spain, and Europe, analyze how socio-political events shape the lives of queer individuals, and explore key theoretical and cinematic debates of the 20th century. Crucially, the constellation of Akerman, Fassbinder, and Almodóvar will also give us foundational knowledge to critically analyze contemporary queer cinema.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Anna McCarthy
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 135
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 21801
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 21802
4 points

This course surveys the cinema and television of Ireland from the silent period to the present day, asking how Irish cinema fits within the wider domain of postcolonial film, literature, and media. The postcolonial context is important. Ireland’s independence from the British Empire is relatively recent and remains partial to this day. The freedom struggle was violent, and it lasted for centuries; not surprisingly, its effects continue to reverberate in Irish culture. As our screenings, readings and discussions demonstrate, the making of a distinctively Irish cinema is, necessarily, a process of cultural reflection on the history of the nation, and on state-engendered physical and emotional violence in particular. Topics covered include settler colonialism and land clearance, entrenched sectarian conflict, and state-sanctioned religious tyranny. We will examine Irish film and media not only in their historical context but also in relation to signature creative works from other twentieth century liberation and decolonization struggles. Assessment will be based on short essays, final group presentations, and ongoing participation.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Andrea Avidad
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 301
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 21816
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 21817
4 points

Film comedy is commonly regarded as a lighthearted genre that primarily aims to amuse and entertain through humor, frequently employing narrative situations and character types that generate laughter through absurdity. In this course, however, we take film comedy seriously, analyzing its function as a form of social critique and its critical engagement with historical social norms, which are exposed in all their contradictions, hypocrisies, and tensions through humor. We will see how film comedy is subversive, allowing audiences to laugh at society’s core structures while revealing the underlying power struggles and ideological tensions that characterize a given historical milieu. Beyond pleasure, laughter can serve as a means to question social injustices and provoke critical reflection on the socio-cultural and political status quo. This course provides a concise overview of the historical development of critical film comedy, encompassing film comedies that “bite back” from the silent period to the present, covering slapstick, screwball, New Hollywood and contemporary comedy, while mixing both American and Global cinema. Through the lenses of satire and dark comedy, we will analyze a myriad of topics such as critiques of labor, the patriarchy, the nuclear family structure, the normative views on romantic relationships and gender roles, the post-digital era and the commodification of identity, and class stratification.

Josslyn Luckett
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 314
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 15382
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 15383
4 points

Can a visual archive help to change the discourse of a musical form? How does what we see/screen about this music called "jazz" (in narrative feature films, in PBS documentaries, in music videos, on Grammy night) inform our listening, our purchasing and streaming? Could a different set of films, a wider reaching visual archive transform our understanding of this music, or to paraphrase the late great Gang Starr poet, Guru, could what we see restructure the metaphysics of a jazz thing? Much of what Hollywood feature films and mainstream documentaries have scripted or proclaimed about the history of this music is that it was created by some black genius musicians (all tragic), and a few white genius musicians (some tragic), who were all male (except for an occasional junkie female vocalist) and are now all dead. In spite of decades of academic and cinematic signifying about jazz as democracy and jazz as freedom, this visual archive tells a very limited tale of this music, who played it, and what it meant to communities from the Treme to Sugar Hill to Central Avenue, to the world, and even to the stars ("space is the place"). In this course we will center a different visual archive that tells a wider tale of this music and who made and still makes it and who is energized and challenged by it. We will evaluate this counter-archive of narrative, documentary and experimental film and video keeping in mind Sherrie Tucker and Nichole Rustin's challenge to "grow bigger ears" to listen for gender in jazz studies. This archive and its international, multiracial, multireligious musician participants invites us to grow bigger ears and eyes for the sound. A combination of film studies and jazz studies readings will support our viewing of a wide range of shorts and features, as well as some close listening of film scores by jazz composers.

This course fulfills the American Cinema requirement.

Chris Straayer
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Remote on Zoom
CINE-UT 320
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 15385
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 15386
4 points

The status of film noir, a 1940-50s American film phenomenon named by French critics, remains hotly debated. Was it a genre, a thematic movement, or a stylistic innovation? Was it the product of post war malaise? Was it knowingly existentialist? Was it a voice from society’s underside? Did it reflect or paint a disrupted society? And, finally, how has it intensified and morphed in more recent filmmaking? We address such topics as philosophical and psychological references, artistic and literary precursors, adaptation and remakes, historical and cultural resonances, war-time and post-war culture, international and interdisciplinary influences, industrial and technical implications, semantic and syntactic elements, production economics, urban solitude, narrative structure, aestheticized space, time in crisis, and genre hybridity. The course situates film noir in relation to modernist literature, hard-boiled fiction, tabloid and photojournalism, German expressionism, French poetic realism, and surrealism. A tentative list of films includes Double Indemnity, Crossfire, Detour, Gilda, The Naked City, Mildred Pierce, and Out of the Past.

Weekly classes will be structured with two components: the first component, consisting of lectures, discussions, presentations, etc., will be synchronous, and the second component, consisting of screenings, project working groups, etc. will be asynchronous.

Dan Streible
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 50 / Class # 15376
4 points

This survey of cinema in the United States up to 1960 examines its predominant commercial form (narrative fiction, including classical Hollywood movies) alongside nonfiction, experimental, and nontheatrical films. “Hollywood” is only part of “American cinema.” The course looks at films themselves -- how do their styles and narratives change over time? -- but also at contexts: how do films document and alter their times? How did the U.S. film industry develop and change? how did the business of movies use stars, genres, publicity, theaters? What role did technologies play? What other institutions and forces impacted American cinema before 1960? We also attend to key figures in this history: the makers (directors, writers, producers, performers, technicians) and shapers of discourse (critics, authors, fans, censors, scholars, politicos, the press, government, et al.), as well as moviegoers. The goal is to understand this consequential and popular modern medium and its contributions to the art and culture of what came to be called modernity.

All students attend the 14 weekly lecture and screening session (4 hours). Undergraduate students are required to attend a weekly 75-minute recitation, led by the class Teaching Assistant. Final course grades are determined by attendance, participation, and four written assignments.

Recitations

Thursdays
Room 670
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am            15377
003:  10:45am-12:00pm    15378

This course fulfills the American Cinema requirement.

Antonia Lant
Wednesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 55 / Class # 15379
4 points

This course surveys the major aesthetic movements and technological developments within international cinema from the birth of the art form until the 1960s. The course will approach films, from a variety of countries, as products of their time, as responses to technological developments, or as contributions to ongoing dialogues about the nature of cinema as an artistic medium. Later sections of the course, after the war and coming of sound, follow more traditional national cinema models. The course will also explore a wide variety of formats including short subjects, serials, and features as well as documentaries and experimental works. The course will introduce students to central texts and concepts of key aesthetic movements such as Expressionism, Surrealism, Poetic Realism, and Neorealism, movements that continued to influence filmmaking far beyond the course’s endpoint in the 1960s

Recitations

Mondays
Room 674
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am            15380
003:  10:45am-12:00pm    15381

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Peter Rea
Tuesdays / 2:00-4:45pm
Room 1202
CINE-UT 146 / class # 16770
4 points

This class is designed to help the students analyze a film script through both viewing and reading of a script. Plot and character development, character 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 include writing coverage

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

Eric Kohn
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 600 / class # 15388
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. This course is open to Cinema Studies undergraduates only.

CINE-UT 900 / Class # 15391
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 # 15395
1-4 points variable

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

Robert Stam
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Cantor 102
CORE-UA 750

Visit the College Core Curriculum website for more information including recitation schedules.