The Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies offers two different minors for undergraduate students. As a student, you can declare a minor using the Student Center on Albert.
Cinema Studies is devoted to the history, theory, and aesthetics of film and the moving image. The approach to cinema is interdisciplinary and international in scope and is concerned with understanding films in terms of the material practices that produce them and within which they circulate. While film constitutes the primary object of study, the department also considers other media that fall within the realm of sound/image studies (e.g. broadcast television, video art, and online technologies) to be within its purview.
Introduction to Cinema Studies is offered each fall in the department. As a substitute, you may enroll in either the College Core Curriculum in the College of Arts and Science’s Expressive Culture: Film or the Department of Film and Television's Language of Film, both offered each semester. It is strongly encouraged that you complete an introductory course before fulfilling the other requirements for the minor.
Small lecture classes will give you the opportunity to delve into specific topics in the areas of film auteurs, genres, movements, national cinemas, television studies, and special topics. Course topics change each semester, so there’s always something new to learn. Recent topics have included American Films of the 1960s & 70s, Animals on Screen, Black City Cinema, HBO, Spike Lee, and opics in TV: Mad Men.
Large lecture courses that survey International Cinema history are taught each semester. Small lecture courses are often focused on international topics, as well. Recent topics have included Arab Cinema, Asian Media & Digital Asias, Indian Cinemas, Irish Cinema, and Post-Wall German Cinema.
You can take any other course offered by the Department of Cinema Studies, or an approved class taught at an NYU Global site.
The minor in Asian Film and Media is designed to provide an interdisciplinary and comparative focus on the historical and contemporary media forms of Asia, as well as in depth study of particular regions and topics. Students investigate the aesthetic forms of popular and art cinemas, the political economy of the film and media industry, audiences, mass culture, media activism, and experimental audiovisual arts in film, video, anime, television, radio, and digital media.
Introduction to Cinema Studies is offered each fall in the department. As a substitute, you may enroll in either the College Core Curriculum in the College of Arts and Science’s Expressive Culture: Film or the Department of Film and Television's Language of Film, both offered each semester. It is strongly encouraged that you complete an introductory course before fulfilling the other requirements for the minor.
Both Asian Media and Popular Culture and Asian Film History/Historiography are taught annually.
Two other courses in the field of Asian Film and Media are required to complete the minor. Recent course topics have included: Digital Asias, Korean Cinema, History of Chinese Cinemas in a Global Context, and Indian Art Cinema.