Spring 2017 Undergraduate Courses

Claudia Calhoun
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class # 15031

This course provides an introduction to the aesthetic, technological, and cultural development of cinema from the emergence of film to the arrival of sound. The class also addresses issues of silent film historiography and explores the basic tools for analyzing the art of film. Topics include: the emergence of cinema from various scientific experiments and popular entertainments of the nineteenth century, the “cinema of attractions”, D.W. Griffith and the origination of narrative form, film expressivity through the use of camera, editing, set design, and acting, the city in cinema, film genres, silent film sound, women and the silent screen, and the movie star system. Screenings cover examples from national cinemas around the world such as American early drama and comedy, Scandinavian cinema, French Impressionism and the avant-garde, Weimar cinema, Soviet montage, and Japanese silent cinema. Readings, screenings, and written essays required.

RECITATIONS
Thursdays, Room 646
Section 002 / 11:00am-12:15pm, class # 15032
Section 003 / 12:30-1:45pm, class # 15033
Section 004 / 2:00-3:15pm, class # 15034

Melissa Phruksachart
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class # 15035

Who, what, when, where, why, and how is television? This core course moves chronologically through different moments in 20th and 21st century history to negotiate these questions, from the golden age of radio to the rise of the networks, cable TV, and online streaming. Modes of inquiry include the political economy of media institutions; theories of reception and fandom; performance and stardom; and studies of genre. We’ll focus primarily on American television, but will make time to explore programming from outside the U.S., as well as American television in languages other than English.

RECITATIONS
Mondays, Room 646
Section 002 / 11:00am-12:15pm, class # 15036
Section 003 / 12:30-1:45pm, class # 15037
Section 004 / 2:00-3:15pm, class # 15038

William Simon
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 635
4 points
Class # 15131

This seminar will explore the dynamics of cinematic narration, especially the relations of language, image, and music in several films of Stanley Kubrick and Terrence Malick. Understanding the cinema as a heterogeneous and compound medium (i.e. a medium that draws on the artistic resources of multiple art forms, including the novel, theatrical drama, image-based arts like painting and photography, and music), we shall examine how film relates these art forms in the process of relating a story. Special emphasis will be placed on films which foreground the aesthetic "beauty" within the image (e.g. Days of Heaven, Barry Lyndon) and/or films which privilege anomalous uses of language (e.g voice-over narration in films noir, Days of Heaven, Barry Lyndon). We will consider relevant theoretical texts (e.g. W.J.T. Mitchell's Picture Theory) and perform in-depth analyses concerning the uses of image, language, and music in relation to cinematic narration. Class presentations and one research paper required.

PERMISSION CODE REQUIRED.

Veronica Pravadelli
Fridays, 12:30-3pm
4 points
Class # 15054

Students must have a GPA of 3.65 to enroll.

This course will provide the CAS Honors Student with the opportunity to write a departmental Honors Thesis (approximately 40 pages in length). At the same time, this course is open to UG Majors who have an interest in producing a longer paper that is of suitable quality for publication or conference submission. This will be a very participatory workshop – drawing on individual paper topics to drive the academic content. Students interested in continuing onto the graduate level are also recommended to enroll. Please be prepared with a paper in hand that you wish to develop and polish during this seminar. Students are encouraged to share their paper with the instructor before the semester starts (veronica.pravadelli@uniroma3.it). Must have 3.65 GPA to enroll. All CAS students wishing to be considered Honors MUST take this. Any TSOA major with a GPA of 3.65 is encouraged to take this course as a Thesis option.

PERMISSION CODE REQUIRED.

Veronica Pravadelli is a Professor of Film Studies at Roma Tre University where she directs the Center for American Studies (CRISA) and the PH.D Program in Film and Visual Culture. She received her Ph.D from Indiana University. She has been Visiting Professor at Brown University in the Dept. of Modern Culture and Media.

Zhen Zhang
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 652
4 points
Class # 15268

One of the greatest filmmakers of our times, Ang Lee and his works exemplify contemporary transnational cinema. From his feature debut The Wedding Banquet (1983), his middle career literary adaptations such as Sense and Sensibility (1995) and martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001), to his explorations in new film technology and narration manifested in Life of Pi (2012) and most recently, Bully Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ang Lee has crossed many boundaries—national, cultural, generic, etc.—and pursued to reinvent film language and address a transnational spectatorship, while constantly returning to his roots in Taiwan and Chinese cultural traditions. This seminar studies Ang Lee’s cinematic output from a combination of perspectives: Taiwan New Cinema, post-Cold War Chinese-language cinema, transnational auteur studies, Asian-American cinema, new Hollywood as global cinema, etc.

PERMISSION CODE REQUIRED.

Jaap Verheul
Thursdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 670
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors) / Class # 21958
Section 002 (Non-majors) / Class # 21959

This course serves as an introduction to Queer Cinema. It explores the distinct aesthetics of queer representation and offers a historical and theoretical account of the politics of gender, sexuality, race, disability, nation, and class that this mode of filmmaking has articulated since the mid-twentieth century. Although queer American cinema occupies a central position, this course transcends a single national cinema and presents instead a variety of queer cinema cultures originating from different countries, directors, and genres. We will begin our analysis with All About Eve (1950) and the (in)visibility of queerness in traditional Hollywood cinema, and subsequently proceed to its visual liberation in the American avant-garde, New German Cinema, British kitchen-sink realism, and, finally, its transgression into the embodied queerness of Stranger by the Lake (2013). This historical expose will provide students, in turn, with an overview of essential theoretical debates on the normativity of identity and its possible alternatives.

Nate Brennan
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors) / Class # 21962
Section 002 (Non-majors) / Class # 21964

From the moment of its inception, moving image media has shared an affinity with the uncanny. Whether in its ability to preserve the images of people and places long since past, its disorienting illusion of movement, or its fantastic depictions of impossible worlds, cinema has long elicited feelings of shock, amazement, and unease in its spectators. As paradoxical as it is to find pleasure in the “ugly feelings” of fear and terror, tales of horror and the fantastic have only grown in popularity over the past century. The appeal of horror and the supernatural, however, goes beyond genre tropes and narrative conventions; media
history is filled with user anxieties over the uncanny nature of media, a conjuration of spectral visions, disembodied voices, and unseen forces. The responses conjured by tales of the supernatural are not limited to dread, revulsion and terror; just as frequently, these stories elicit feelings of grief, loneliness, nostalgia, fantasy, and pleasure. Cinema, in other words, is not just ideal for the telling of supernatural tales – it is itself a haunted medium. This class explores supernatural media through the affective intersection between cinema, technology, modern belief, and spectatorship. Students will engage with a range of international films and critical works drawn from literature, art history, film studies, cultural studies, and critical theory.

Bill Simon
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors) / Class # 15304
Section 002 (Non-majors) / Class # 15434

This course will examine a tendency in American narrative film during the 1960’s and the first half of the 1970’s.  This tendency can be generally defined as putting into dialogue two characteristics: 1) innovation in narrative structure and the use of genre; and 2) a critical perspective towards aspects of American culture and politics. We shall study specific narrative and genre qualities which differentiate this period of American film-making from classical norms.  And we shall relate motifs of the films in relation to specific historical manifestations in politics, society and culture.  Film-makers include Kubrick, Penn, Peckinpah, Wexler, Lester, Coppola, Malick, Pakula, Scorsese, and Altman.  Screenings, readings, and papers required.

Please note: limited enrollment.

Zhen Zhang
Tuesdays, 6-10pm
Room 670
4 points

Section 001 (Cinema Studies majors) / Class # 21956
Section 002 (Non-majors) / Class # 21957

Critically evaluating select influential scholarship in Asian film studies from the last two decades, this seminar aims to reconsider and move beyond existing paradigms such as national cinema, world cinema, and transnational cinema, in addition to categories or assumptions derived from traditional area studies with origins in the cold war cultural politics. While critically reviewing literature on specific cases of national and regional cinemas (e.g.; China, Japan, India), we will explore alternative perspectives on trans-Asian and trans-hemispheric film culture histories (for example, film policy, censorship, co-production, traveling genres, festivals), as well as contemporary formations under the impact of globalization and digital media. With a focus on historiography and methodology, the course serves as a forum for developing innovative research projects that cut across disciplinary as well as geopolitical boundaries.

Dana Polan
Tuesdays, 6-10pm
Cantor 102
4 points
Class #15039

This course offers a broad survey of American cinema from 1960 up to the present. 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.

Cross-listed with FMTV-UT 324.

RECITATIONS
Wednesdays, Room 646
Section 002 / 9:30-10:45am / Class # 15040
Section 003 / 11:00am-12:15pm / Class # 15041
Section 004 / 12:30-1:45pm / Class # 15042

Cortland Rankin
Mondays, 6:20-9:50pm
Cantor 102
4 points
Class # 15046

This course surveys key historical movements and production moments in international cinema since 1960. Through close readings of exemplary films, the course will familiarize students with significant aesthetic, industrial, and technological
developments that have occurred internationally over the past half-century. Emphasis will be placed on how social, political, economic, and cultural factors impact modes of production as well as film form and style in various contexts. Studies of historically innovative movements in particular national cinemas will be complemented with transnational perspectives that seek to trace lines of influence across borders. Students will encounter works from a diverse spectrum of filmmakers, including Agnès Varda, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Andrey Tarkovsky, Stephen Frears, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jane Campion, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Cross-listed with FMTV-UT 322.

RECITATIONS
Tuesdays, Room 646
Section 002 / 11:00am-12:15pm / Class # 15047
Section 003 / 12:30-1:45pm / Class # 15048
Section 004 / 2:00-3:15pm / Class # 15049

Ken Dancyger
Thursdays, 6:20-9pm
Room 674
4 points
Class # 15433

Genre is all about understanding that there are different pathways each genre presents to the writer. Genres each have differing character and dramatic arcs. In this class students will learn about different genres and using that knowledge will write two different genre treatments of their story idea. This is an intermediate level screenwriting class.

CINE-UT 901
1-4 points variable
Class # 15055

CINE-UT 903
1-4 points variable
Class # 15056

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 #15396

CINE-UT 952
1-4 points (variable)
Class #15397

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.  

Youngwoo Lee
Mondays & Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45pm
GCASL Room 261
4 points
Class # 21051

This course traces the dynamic relays and reciprocal impacts of novels, films and contemporary arts in South Korea. The course primarily aims at developing the student’s critical ability through introducing historical genealogies of racism, nationalism and the notions of colonial modernity, romantic love and the political notions of the nation-state in Korean literature and films, which are closely related to the transformative aesthetic, social and political implication of modern Korea. This course is designed to offer a series of discourses concerning (1) the historical genealogies of specific modes of gender, sex, and racial issue which are related to the imperial discourse during the modernization process through literature, films and other forms of cultural artifacts (2) the implication of nationality and race in various contexts in literature and film including the notions of colonialism, imperialism, nationalism and Americanization. (3) the questions of femininity and masculinity in the knowledge production in modern and contemporary South Korea. The assigned readings will be provided in English.

David Bagnall
Mondays, 6:20-9pm
Room 108
4 points
Class # 6638

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
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 611
4 points
Class # 6647

This course studies the different kinds of institutions that collect and manage cultural heritage material: museums of art, history and science; libraries, archives, and historical societies; corporate institutions. It compares and contrasts these types of institutions to reveal how they differ from one another. It considers, for example, how different types of institutions may handle similar material in significantly different ways (from what they acquire, to how they describe it, to how they display or preserve it). The course also examines the principles followed by the different professions that work in these institutions (librarians, archivists, curators, conservators). The course examines theories of collecting, and the history and culture of heritage institutions and the professions that work there. It studies their various missions and professional ethics, and the organizational structures of institutions that house cultural heritage (including professional positions and the roles of individual departments). Experts who are professionally concerned with cultural collections will visit the seminar to discuss their organizations and duties, while the class will also visit a variety of local cultural institutions. The course is required for students in the MA in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. Other students should write to the instructor for permission at <howard@nyu.edu>

Dan Streible
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class # 6710

The word “curating” differs in meaning in different contexts. This course embraces a broad conception of curating as the treatment of materials from their acquisition, archiving, preservation, restoration, and reformatting, through their screening, programming, use, re-use, exploitation, translation, and interpretation. This course focuses on the practices of film and video exhibition in museums, archives, cinematheques, festivals, and other venues. It examines the goals of public programming, its constituencies, and the curatorial and archival challenges of presenting film, video, and digital media. We study how archives and sister institutions present their work through exhibitions, events, publications, and media productions. We also examine how these presentations provoke uses of moving image collections. Specific curatorial practices of festivals, symposia, seminars, and projects will be examined in detail.   Active participation in class discussion is essential to the success of this seminar, and therefore mandatory. All graduate students (and select advanced undergraduates) may take the course.