Spring 2026 Undergraduate Courses

Paula Massood
Mondays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 15 / Class # 14047
4 points

This course introduces students to the first three decades of film history. It is designed to provide a foundation for the major, through situating the cinema within a broad cultural, aesthetic, economic, and social context, and through establishing that cinema operated internationally from the start. This period saw the rise of the studio and star systems in the consolidation of Hollywood; the production and screening of a wealth of non-fiction cinemas; and the formation of an international avant-garde cinema movement. Other topics we will cover include: the wide range of early sources for moving image culture; the earliest forms of cinema; the growth of storytelling through film; film exhibition, film audiences, and film reception; the large impact of women’s film work; film as a central component of modern life; and the development of several national cinemas such as German, Japanese, Chinese, Danish, Russian, and Soviet. Silent filmmaking has never gone away; the course may consider how it has persisted, revisited and recycled in later works for the screen.

Recitations
Wednesdays
Room 674
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am                14048
003:  10:45am-12:00pm          14049

Feng-Mei Heberer
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 21 / Class # 14050
4 points

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 674
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am                14051
003:  10:45am-12:00pm          14052

Allen Weiss
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 652
CINE-UT 700 / Class # 14055
4 points

This interdisciplinary course will investigate the relations between experimental film, radio, music, and sound art in modernism and postmodernism. The inventions of photography, cinema and sound recording radically altered the 19th century consciousness of perception, temporality, selfhood, and death. The newfound role of the voice — depersonalized, disembodied, eternalized — appeared in poetic and literary phantasms of that epoch, and offered models of future (and futuristic) art forms. This course will study the aesthetic and ideological effects of this epochal shift, especially as it concerns the subsequent practice of avant-garde art and aesthetics. It will specifically focus on the re-contextualization of the history of avant-garde film in the broader context of the sound arts and their discursive practices, including Dada, Surrealism and the American Independent Cinema. Special attention will be paid to the transformations of the 1950s and 1960s, the moment when the arts moved toward a more performative mode, entailing the dematerialization and decommodification of the aesthetic domain.

Prerequisite: Film Theory

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

Jacob Floyd
Wednesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 635
CINE-UT 701 / Class # 14056
4 points

Recently, with the loss of legends like Robert Redford, the rise of comic book and video game movies, the emergence of social media influencers, and the underperformance of would-be blockbusters featuring once-bankable icons from the ‘80s and ‘90s, critics and industry observers have asked if the movie star is dying, if not already dead. But why have movie stars been so important to cinema, and figured so prominently in its history, especially in Hollywood? What makes someone a star, and how are they similar and/or different from other actors? How have scholars analyzed the craft of acting, and characterized its development? Zooming out further, what might actors and stars tell us about our own relationship to media, culture, economics, and society?
 
This course will address these questions by studying foundational texts in star studies that analyze stars as texts, images, phenomena, authors, and workers. Topics include: the history of the star system; star studies; stars as authors; promotion and intertextuality; fandom; method acting; actors, stars, and labor; character and background actors; and the relationship between stars, nation, and society. While our readings and screenings will have a Hollywood-centric focus, both during the studio era and in more recent decades students are encouraged to draw connections to contemporary stars across media, industries, and cultures in their own research projects.

Prerequisite: Film Theory

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

Zhen Zhang
Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 652
CINE-UT 707 / Class # 14057
4 points

This seminar traces the evolving contours and debates in the two rapidly expanding and intersecting areas of study: eco-cinema/media studies and environmental studies in the context of climate change. A product and agent of colonial, capitalist modernity and its symbiotic alternatives, cinema as a mass medium was deeply intertwined with modern perceptions and representations of the natural world and the impact of human interaction with it. We will screen and discuss a cluster of nonfiction and fictional films/videos from various historical periods and geo-cultural locations that directly or indirectly address the changing realities of the environment and the dire consequences of its degradation. Guided by an ecocritical perspective, we will engage issues and topics such as biodiversity, deforestation, water, waste, plastic pollution, agriculture/food, extreme weather, eco-disaster; as well as theories and practices concerning the anthropocene, extractivism, eco-feminism, eco-ethics and -politics of mainstream and independent cinema, ecologies of film production and consumption, cinematic animals/digital creatures, indigenous (visual) sovereignty, climate justice, and grassroots/transnational environmental activism.

Students actively contribute to the seminar through collaborative work and individual projects.

Prerequisite: Film Theory

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

Ann Lyuwenyu Zhang
Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 100
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 18953
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 18954
4 points

The first half of this course investigates the representation of Asian and Asian diasporic characters and cultures in Disney feature films, and the second half explores theoretical and  historical thinking related to Disney’s transmedial approach in its theme parks in Asia.  Encompassing Disney’s influence on Asian film industry in the early 20th century to the  contemporary boom of Asian-led stories (Big Hero 6, Raya and the Last Dragon, etc.) and the  theme parks, this course will challenge the students to critique the images that we are so familiar with and explore Disney media from a wide range of cultural and theoretical perspectives. We  will deconstruct fiction and documentary media informed by theories and ideas like techno orientalism, feminism, queer theories, race, post-colonialism, Asian diaspora, and neoliberalism  (among others) to rethink what it means to be represented by Disney and how the media  conglomerate shapes or is shaped by Asian experiences. The students will also learn to analyze  multi-media experiences like theme parks on top of traditional Disney animations.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Phoebe Chen
Mondays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 412
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 19118
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 19119
4 points

Exploring films that represent various dimensions of immigrant and refugee experience in the US, this course will examine cinema’s role in both building and critiquing the narrative of America as a “nation of immigrants.” Through a contemporary selection of films made between 1990 and the present, we will consider how “American cinema” can be conceived of as a transnational cinema constituted by settler-colonial, migrant, and refugee experiences. We engage with the stories of immigrants in the process of moving, at the frontiers of Ellis Island and the US-Mexican border, as well as second generation immigrants who are no longer itinerant but grapple with cultural dissonance and assimilation. Although we will largely focus on independent cinema, the films in this course will range from epic period dramas such as The Immigrant (2013), queer rom-coms like The Wedding Banquet (1993), to films like Strawberry Fields (1997) that use archival home video footage of Japanese internment. This scope will allow us to investigate how genre and form interact with narrative expectations and representations.

Michael Gillespie
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 320
Cinema Studies majors: Section 001 / Class # 14053
Non-Cinema Studies majors: Section 002 / Class # 14054
4 points

This course is an interdisciplinary approach to American cinema with a focus on noir films of the 1990s and an investment in noir not as a fixed categorical genre but as a discourse, modality, or what James Naremore calls “the history of an idea.” Students will study how these films consequentially restaged issues of criminality, detection, the social contract, the city, and the ambiguities of good and evil. Rather than defer to the classical noir model and the reductive frame of “neo-noir,” this course considers how this period posed distinct enactments of film form, historiography, culture, gender, sexuality, class, and race/ethnicity.

This course fulfills the U.S. Cinema requirement.

Dana Polan
Tuesdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 51 / Class # 14068
4 points

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.

Recitations
Thursdays
Room 670
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am                14069
003:  10:45am-12:00pm          14070

This course fulfills the U.S. Cinema requirement.

Hadi Gharabaghi
Thursdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-UT 56 / Class # 14071
4 points

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 may 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.

Recitations
Tuesdays
Room 670
                                            Class #       
002:  9:15-10:30am                14072
003:  10:45am-12:00pm          14073

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

CINE-UT 901 / Class # 14058      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 # 14074      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.

Zhen Zhang
Tuesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-GT 1136
Section 002 // Class # 7323
4 points

The course studies Sinophone or Chinese-language cinemas from the emergence of post-classical or post-socialist cinemas in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China from 1970s-1980s to the more recent formations around the turn of the new century in the region and beyond. The distinctiveness of the three new wave cinemas and their interactions and aftermaths, especially after the Hong Kong handover in 1997 and under the impact of neoliberal globalization, offer ideal laboratories for reconsidering the premises and limitations of the concepts of national and transnational cinema.  Along the same axis, we will also probe the problematic of cultural nationalism and neo-regionalism (e.g.; “greater China” and pan-Chinese cinema) within the trans-Asian context, and the tension between state's cultural policy and film industry, commercial cinema and art or independent practices.  Given the massive transformations in media technology and industrial organization in the past decades, we will also consider the ramifications of new/digital media for film and screen culture, including the new documentary movement, amateur and activist film/video practices, and queer and feminist cinema.  Screenings include festival favorites, commercial blockbusters and DV works. Students actively take part in discussions, presentations and engage in research toward a term project.

Please note: History of Sinophone World Cinema I is NOT a prerequisite for enrollment.

Open to andvanced undergraduates with prior permission of the instructor. Advanced undergraduates should email the instructor (zz6@nyu.edu) to request permission to register.

Dana Polan
Thursdays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room 648
CINE-GT 1202-002 / Class # 7299
4 points

Martin Scorsese is one of the most celebrated of American feature film directors (along with documentaries, long and short). His name even adorns the title of our department (as well as scholarships in the department and Tisch's Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center in Brooklyn). This course sets out to study the director and the development of his reputation through close study of key films across his career. We will look at such topics as: ethnicity, community, masculinity, representations of privileged individuals (such as artists, whether they merit that privilege or not), criminality and morality, distinctions of non-fiction and fiction film, musical soundtracks, genre, and so on. We will also give a key place to Scorsese’s efforts around film history: his film preservation work; his own written histories of film as well as documentaries on specific national cinemas; the ways his own films take inspiration from the trajectory of cinema — and sometimes build direct direct reference to it in their narratives — from its silent days to the affordances of special effects today (like 3D with the movie Hugo, about the earliest days of cinema).

Advanced undergraduates must receive permission of the instructor before registering. Please email dana.polan@nyu.edu to request enrollment and forward Professor Polan's approval to melanie.daly@nyu.edu.

Dan Streible
Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:30
Room 674
CINE-GT 1806-002 / Class # 20837
4 points

This course embraces a broad conception of curating as the treatment of materials from their discovery, archiving, preservation and reformatting, through their exhibition, distribution, exploitation, and interpretation. It compares and contrasts the often differing curatorial practices found in archives, museums, cinematheques, festivals, art galleries, web platforms, and other venues. The course examines the goals of public programming, audience engagement, and the myriad factors involved with presenting and distributing moving image media. We explore various methods to present archival and often marginalized moving film, video and digital media via engaging exhibitions, events, publications, and media productions. Our guest speakers are professionals involved in the world of cinema, art and cultural curating and programming.

Open to andvanced undergraduates in Tisch with prior permission of the instructor. Advanced undergraduates at Tisch should email the instructor (dan.streible@nyu.edu) by 12/1/25 to request permission to register.

Jacob Floyd
Friday, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-GT 2121-002 / Class # 7307
4 points

Two of the highest grossing original films of 2025 were Sinners and Weapons, and their popularity led to conversations and questions about horror, questions central to this course: what defines the horror film and why is it popular? Is it a set of formal traits, a narrative approach, shared motifs, an affect, a worldview, or something determined by fans? In this course, we will seek to define horror cinema and, in the process, chart its generic evolution, as well as its relationship to genre theory, the film industry, historical events, popular culture, fans, and media formats and technologies. While the course will focus primarily on film, we will acknowledge horror cinema’s relationship with literature, television, and new media. After completing the course, students will be able to identify central topics and debates in horror studies, as well as engage in original research that provides their own definition of the term, as well as account for horror’s industrial and cultural resonance. During the course, we will screen both canonical classics and lesser-known works.

Advanced undergraduates must receive permission of the instructor before registering. Please email jtf277@nyu.edu to request enrollment and forward Professor Floyd's approval to melanie.daly@nyu.edu.

Ida Chavoshan & Erin Morrison
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11:00am-12:15pm
60 5th Avenue, Room 161
CINE-UT 218 / Class # 19054
4 points

Dearest gentle reader, this course provides a space for a critical exploration into the world of Regency England portrayed in the current hit Netflix TV show Bridgerton. Stories like Bridgerton have romanticized a period of time defined by global colonization, cultural and environmental exploitation, and significant economic disparity by creating worlds for their protagonists steeped in extravagance and chivalry. Using Bridgerton as a case study, each week is split into two parts. On fantasy days, students examine how choices made for Bridgerton (about characters, story structure, etc.) contribute to a common theme of escapist romanticism. On reality days, students dissect the reality of the same theme based on historically accurate accounts, guest lectures from experts, and field trips. Through this shift from fantasy to reality, we seek to answer questions like: What was the reality and global impact of Regency England? Does it matter that this reality existed? Why is this era romanticized and reimagined in books, TV shows, and films? Do we keep coming back to works like Bridgerton to lose ourselves in the fantasy? Is an alternate universe problematic? The course is based around active participation in discussions on assigned readings, videos, lectures, and field trips. Students write weekly discussion posts and lead the discussion on course material once during the semester. During the course of the semester, students are guided through the steps of a research project of a theme of their choice in Bridgerton. The goal of the course is to challenge students to consider the impact of erasing critical historical context in escapist romantic narratives and propose solutions to make these stories more inclusive while also retaining the escapist elements that viewers love.

This course is open to Cinema Studies majors only. Outside students should register for ELEC-UF 102.002.

Ifeona Fulani & Linnéa Hussein
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:00-3:15pm
ARC LL03
CINE-UT 300 / Class # 18952
4 points

The term “Third Cinema” was coined in the 1960s by Argentine filmmakers to denote revolutionary cinema existing outside of Hollywood (First Cinema) and European auteur cinema (Second Cinema.) Third Cinema filmmakers see film as a tool to motivate people from all social classes to recognize the dominance of oppressive neo-colonial conditions in their lives and to inspire them to become politically engaged. The political priorities and aesthetic agenda of the Argentines influenced filmmakers across the colonized world and the questions that the Third Cinema movement raised are still relevant and important because they remain unanswered or unresolved.
 
In this course students learn about different cultures and traditions associated with Third Cinemas around the globe. Beginning with Getino and Solana’s radical Third Cinema manifesto, students will study cinemas of rebellion, decolonization and liberation through the lens of transnational solidarity movements. From Latin America to Africa, the Middle East to the U.S. as well as new directions of Third Cinemas that involve Asia and Indigenous cultures, this course will cover a variety of political, aesthetic, and socio-cultural breaks from tradition that pave the way for counter filmmaking to this day. We will view films by directors who  determinedly turn away from Hollywood’s stranglehold on representation by projecting  their own images and by  raising questions of class, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

This course is open to Cinema Studies majors in their senior year only. Outside students should register for SCAI-UF 401.002.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

Manthia Diawara
Mondays, 6:00-8:45pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 844 / Class # 23204

A look at contemporary African Literature, film and art as ways of examining different outcomes of postcolonial cultural productions in Africa. The main focus of the class will be on the writings and cinema of Sembene Ousmane. We will look at how this pivotal African filmmaker goes from written texts to their filmic renditions. Our analysis will emphasize the ways in which his literary language endeavors to free itself from the syntax of “Francité”--the French ways of expressing themselves–while the films owe their originality to the African oral tradition. In the same vein, we will look at the filmic adaptation of such African classics as Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Man Died by Wole Soyinka, and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  The aim of the class is to provide students with a sense of the context of artistic productions in Africa; and to shed light on the politics, aesthetics and reception theories of African imaginative works. The thematic discussions include the debates around the Negritude Movement, identity and Pan-Africanism, artistic commitment and the uses of African languages and orature by African artists. Books: The Money-Order with White Genesis (Sembene) God’s Bits of Wood (Sembene), Tribal Scars (Sembene), Xala (Sembene), Niiwam and Taaw (Sembene), The Man Died (Soyinka), Half of a Yellow Sun (Adichie), Things Fall Apart (Achebe).

This course is open to Cinema Studies majors only. Outside students should register for COLIT-UA 300.

This course fulfills the International Cinema requirement.

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

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