Summer 2026 Undergraduate Courses

Laura Harris
Mondays - Thursdays
12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 218
Class # 5163

How has AI transformed Cinema? How has AI transformed cinema studies? What further changes lie ahead? And what role can we play in shaping those changes? We will approach these questions in four ways and then see where our conversations take us:

1. We will study the history of the development of AI technology, focusing on the scientific, industrial, and political projects that inspired its invention, the projects AI is currently being used for, and the projects that have been envisioned for it, including the production, for pleasure, of moving audio-visual images in cinema and other media.
2. We will view examples of the use of AI in cinema and other media to assist humans by performing tasks that humans can’t (or now may not have to perform). We will address the ways the creation of special effects, imaginary spaces, extras and actors like Tilly Norwood, and the use of algorithms by Netflix and other networks to create films for targeted audiences have changed production, distribution, and viewing practices in the entertainment industry.
3. We will view productions in cinema and other media about AI, productions that reflect on cooperation and/or tension between humans and AI. We will view some classic works such as: Metropolis; Forbidden Planet; Alphaville; 2001; The Stepford Wives; Star Wars; and TV series like The Jetsons or Star Trek. More recent works may include: Blade Runner; The Terminator; Ghost in the Shell; The Matrix; Bicentennial Man; A.I.; I, Robot; Ex Machina; Transcendence; Her; I am Mother; Oxygen; Wall E, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Big Hero 6; M3GAN; Eye/Machine I, II, and III, and TV series such as Doreamon, Vivy, or Ivu no Jikan. Student suggestions will also be welcome!
4. Finally, we will consider the initial panic over and current embrace of AI in the university and if, when and how we might want to make use of AI in the ways we study.

Anthony Dominguez
Mondays-Thursdays
6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 412
Class # 4911

 The Cinema of Y2K In their cyberpunk retrospective, Anthology Films Archives and Screen Slate dubbed 1995 “the year the internet broke” in reference to the smattering of pop-culture that brought forth the internet and the world of cybernetics into the mainstream. While 1995 saw the release of landmark cyberpunk films such as Ghost in the Shell, Hackers, and Johnny Mnemonic, the ensuing years leading up to the year 2000 were also part of the cultural zeitgeist known as “Y2K,” an event that heralded the apocalypse, promising that a global failure in computer systems would lead humanity back to the stone age. Since then, however, Y2K has evolved beyond its cyberpunk roots and has now become a catch-all-phrase to reference the cultural movement of the time and its encompassing elements—the rise of reality television on MTV and bubble-gum pop stars such as Britney Spears, the Global War on Terror and its mediatization, the advent of Cool Japan and the rapid advancement in game technologies, and the technological shift in cinema heralded both by George Lucas’ embracing of digital technologies but also the dearth of independent directors who would find new creative powers in the mini d.v. Apocalypse / Utopia: The Visual Culture of Y2K explores how the turn of the millennium shaped aesthetics, media, and technology, beginning with 1995 and ending with 2007—the year which saw the release of the iPod touch, Facebook, and the seventh generation consoles, cultural elements that signaled the beginning of web 3.0. Throughout the semester, we will explore key topics such as Afrofuturism in hip-hop and techno music (The Last Angel of History); Japanese technology and Techno-Orientalism (Ringu); Cyberspace as a queer utopia (Let’s Love Hong Kong); the rise of MMORPGs (Avalon); and finally, new internet aesthetics such as Vaporwave and Hyperpop (Macintosh Plus/SOPHIE). This course aims to demonstrate how Y2K emerged as a cultural flashpoint and reveal how emerging nostalgia over Y2K speaks to our current failures to imagine new and alternative futures.

Stephanie Zacharek
Mondays-Thursdays
6:00-10:00pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 600
Class # 4856

This course will examine the history and practice of film criticism as a means of helping students to sharpen their own critical thinking and writing. We'll focus on the finer points of film scholarship and film criticism, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of theory as applied in criticism. We'll also examine the role of criticism in the age of the internet, and the specific demands of covering the festival circuit. Students will explore the practicalities and challenges of writing about film across all genres—including mainstream comedies and action films, art cinema and avant-garde film, political films and documentaries—and we’ll discuss modes of critical practice useful in addressing those films. Course readings will include essays by Pauline Kael, Manny Farber, André Bazin, Molly Haskell, Andrew Sarris, James Agee, and others. Students will be expected to write an essay of 800 to 1000 words each week evaluating films screened in class or playing in the New York City area.

Sophie Holzberger
Mondays & Wednesdays
12:30-4:30pm
Room 674
CINE-UT 320
Class # 2565

Over the course of this summer class, we will look at different beaches in film history, try  to cool down from the New York heat at the movies and understand why sand and water  have posed an ongoing fascination for filmmakers. The ocean and its shoreline have  been captured on film for as long as the medium exists. Buzzing holiday towns and their  sand lines have made popular narrative backdrops for many movies, including getaway  romcoms, detective stories, and horror films. Social life at the shore and the movement  of water has posed as a fascinating site for capturing the camera’s ability to record  movement and dynamics, above or below ground, bringing images from far away  universes deep down the sea to the surface. Looking at the ocean means to contend  with the fact that joy and death go hand in hand: it is the most unknown part of our  planet, the center of climate change, the largest mass grave in human history, and one  of the most beloved retreats of modern-day buzzing lives, making it a site of many  fantasies, sea monsters and liberated queer fluidities all of which haunt film’s media  history. With this class, we will explore different iterations of the beach in international  cinema, trying to understand why we love looking at the ocean and its shores and what  we can learn from that. 

Juan Camilo Velasquez
Tuesdays & Thursdays
12:30-4:30pm
Room 670
CINE-UT 310
Class # 4855

 The Music Video: Cinematic Perspectives explores the complicated and fruitful marriage of moving images and popular sound, from early twentieth-century experiments in “visual music” to today’s algorithmic platforms and self-directed pop auteurs. The course asks how the music video became both a laboratory for cinematic experimentation, a form of advertising, and a global medium used for expressing self, rhythm, and desire.

Beginning with visual music and mid-century avant-garde experiments, we will follow how technologies of synchronization, editing, and performance evolved into the aesthetics of MTV and the visual album. In the second half, we turn to filmmakers like David Fincher, Hype Williams, Jonathan Glazer, Michel Gondry, Melina Matsoukas, whose work moves fluidly between cinema and the music video. What happens when rhythm becomes montage? How do editing, gesture, and fashion produce meaning? What does it mean for an artist to direct their own image in a post-MTV, streaming era?

By combining historical study, aesthetic analysis, and theoretical reflection, The Music Video: Cinematic Perspectives offers students a framework for understanding how cinema’s past continues to reverberate through contemporary popular media, and how the short, musical image remains one of the most inventive forms of visual expression today.

CINE-UT 900
Class # 2447
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 # 2413
1-4 points variable

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