Film, Media, & Theatre Courses

Understanding how media texts are created. The course provides a behind-the-scenes look at film, television, and radio, guiding students to a thorough understanding of the technological and stylistic options available to producers and directors. These options, in turn, form the palate from which directors and others construct mediated texts--the images, sounds, and dramatic tensions necessary for the successful execution of theatrical film, television, and radio. Examples will be taken from current film, television, and radio programming. Aimed at an educated consumer of the media, this course requires no previous experience in the media arts.

This course examines the cultural, narrative and critical impact of literary and cinematic forms of Film Noir and the Detective Film in the United States. The course introduces the student to the technical and aesthetic processes used in developing the style and form found in the American Cinema since 1941.

This course examines Hollywood genre films from a cultural perspective. Genres such as the western, the musical, the science fiction film, and the crime film change over time, both reflecting and affecting the cultural attitudes of filmmakers and audiences. This course may be taught as an overview of several genres or as a specific analysis of one particular genre.

The United States has a rich theatrical and dramatic heritage often hidden in the shadow of our colonial connection to England and dismissed by the Puritan ideology and ethics that formed the basis of our government. This web-based course shall explore that rich heritage through an in-depth look at the people, historical situations and the drama literature that reflected the growth of this country from our colonial beginning to its maturity as a world leader in the 20th century.

This class examines social and cultural constructions of the artist and the art world. Through viewing film adaptations of artist's biographies and films depicting artists' lives and works, this class offers students the chance to explore art history, the genre of biography, the roles of the artist and art enthusiast in popular culture, and film theory. Throughout the semester, students will explore how authors draw from stereotypical and culturally-specific understandings of artists' roles when constructing their narratives. In addition, students will improve their ability to critique texts through closely looking at images, written texts, and film. By discussing historical precedents, this course also raises issues pertinent to current cultural ideologies, popular culture, and visual rhetoric.

Students will read American literary works by and about African Americans that have been adapted into different media, from the written texts of poetry, drama, and fiction to the visual texts of photography and film. Students will assess whether the adaptations clarify, distort, or contribute to the original themes of African Americans surviving in an oppressive culture, and will regard how the conventions of a medium affect a difference. Adopting the critical vernacular of each genre, students will articulate the strengths of adaptation versus the weaknesses of appropriation, as well as scrutinize stereotypical and production-safe representations and tropes in light of unique and daring originality. Our discussions will address sensitive racial issues as diverse as slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws, Black Lives Matter, the ethical nature of sharing self- deprecating and race-undermining truths, and white privilege.

British humor as exemplified in popular culture by Monty Python's Flying Circus has gained recent acceptance in U.S., but is actually based on a long tradition that has its roots in the special love of wit, puns, paradoxes, and epigrams the English have manifested since the Viking invasions. Even though sensing the laughable and absurd is a universal trait, humor is expressed according to cultural differences and values of class, education, or special interest. Students in the course will look at British Humor on radio, TV, and film and attempt to define its unique attributes.

This course examines the history of sex and violence in film and on television. topics that may be covered include efforts to regulate or restrict film and television program content, how formerly taboo topics relating to sex and violence have been presented in film or on television, how media companies attempt to profit by presenting sex and violence in film and on television, what the manner in which sex and violence are presented in film and on television tell us about the society of the time, and how the First Amendment limits government regulation of film and television content.

An intensive overview of the history of television and related electronic media from the 1920s to the present. Topics include the rise of the network system, programming, rating and audience research, regulation, and the evolution of television technology. Viewing of significant programming in television history.

This course covers both colonial and national periods of Latin American history through a combination of historical readings, fiction, and full-length feature films and videos. It aims at providing an overview of the past from the late fifteenth century to the recent present. Important institutions, processes, and themes will be studied. Students are presumed to have little or no knowledge of Latin American history and knowledge of the Spanish language is not required. Students will read both primary and secondary accounts of the events covered in the films and will be asked to assess the films in light of historical facts and interpretation and poetic license.

The complexity of our society makes it necessary for us to draw what we know, or think we know, from information about events, trends, and even people from the mass media. Yet few people are trained as consumers of information produced by the media. This course examines the various perceptions of reality that the mass media create, exploring some of the reasons why these perceptions occur.

As the presidential election campaign gets into full swing, the role of the media will become increasingly important as news coverage, presidential debates, and election advertising bring this important issue to the public. Mass Media and Society will examine not only the presidential campaign, but also the impact of media on individuals, institutions, and community. Participants in this course will probe how and why the media developed the way it did, where the media is today, and where the media seems to be heading in the age of information. The class will explore the cultural context and norms of major media industries such as newspapers, magazines, books, radio, films, television, music recordings, public relations and advertising.

This MALA course capitalizes on great films to investigate the lives of people who achieve greatness. Films such as Amadeus, Braveheart, Glory, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, and Schindler's List are used as laboratories for studying the principles of greatness as played out in the lives of heroes, creators, commanders, and statesmen. Although the domains of greatness vary, from music to politics to the battlefield, many of the essential ingredients are the same. Chief among these is courage, which Ernest Hemingway defined as grace under pressure.

From Homer's The Iliad to Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carry to Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, we learn about humankind at war. We read of glory and victory. We read of death and destruction. We also gain insight into the hearts and minds of those involved, from the military men and women who fight and the family members who love them to the people in the societies caught in the center of the conflict. We see the struggles they face, hopefully, learning about not only history and the harsh realities of wartime but also the human condition. Thus, this class will focus on war stories, from the ancient past to the very present, fiction and non-fiction, from epic poems, novels, and films to narratives from the soldiers themselves. As we read the war stories and watch them emerge on film, we will analyze the content and discuss the impact not just on those involved but all of humanity.

What is the American West? Is it a myth or a reality? Is it a place or a construct? This course will first explore key writers and filmmakers that have attempted to define the ideal of the American West in the 19th century. We will first examine frontier narratives and classic Western novels and representation of the old west in films. Then, we will study contemporary voices of the 20th century, including Native American writers, regional authors, and filmmakers and determine to what extent they have complicated the construct of the American West. Although this course focuses primarily on literature and film, students will be invited to explore other representations of the American West for their individual research project. These other representations may stem from photography, paintings, and/or sculptures as well as the cowboy culture.

This course is designed to guide the student in learning to write a feature-length film screenplay, from concept generation to dramatic structure narrative to the student’s own individual acts. In a workshop environment, participants receive feedback on their efforts from the professor and their peers at every step along the way.

Through this course, students will critically examine how movies have helped to construct viewers’ understanding of what journalism is; how it functions in relation to politics, social movements, and public discourse; and, what the role of the journalist is in our society. Specific topics are four-fold. First, how journalism movies have reflected their cultural time and place: for example, how movies in the 1930s depicted the influence of the press on public opinion about politics and the Great Depression; and how the war correspondent of the 1940s was depicted as a liaison between those in the military and homefront audiences. Second, how journalism movies are related to their specific production contexts: for example, which Hollywood stars frequently played newspaper editors and reporters, and how their star images shaped audience perceptions of those professions. Third, how key moments in journalism history have been depicted onscreen: for example, the Washington Post investigation of Watergate by Woodward & Bernstein. And finally, how journalists have interacted with Hollywood to try to influence their onscreen images: for example, how newspaper editors in the 1930s complained to major American studios about movie portrayals of reporting as a profession. Films are likely to include: Citizen Kane (1942), All the Presidents Men (1976), Spotlight (2016), Up Close and Personal (1996), Ace in the Hole (1951), as well as Good Night and Good Luck (2005).

This course explores films, television programs, and related media offerings of the 1950s in relation to cold-war popular culture and its various aspects pertaining to “containment” (including atomic anxiety, brainwashing, juvenile delinquency, McCarthyism, and the nuclear family).

This course will examine the subject matter of the theatre, through the medium of film. Students will view around a dozen movies that treat the mythos and iconography of the theatre – a closely related, but distinctly different art form. Among the topics to be examined are: the blurred lines between reality and the fictive world of the stage; the power of outside forces to contaminate the artistic processes of the theatre; the sense of luck and chance in any artistic endeavor, especially the theatre; the struggle for women to compete in a male-dominated arena; the struggle to allow one’s ego to inform their art, without allowing it to destroy their art; the pressure to understand what innovations must be embraced by artists, and which traditions must be discarded. Assignments will include regular class discussions, short essays about films viewed in class, and take-home exams. Films under consideration for the class include 42nd Street, All About Eve, Shakespeare in Love, and many others.

Whereas the ancient world played out the problems of philosophy on the public stage, in our day it is on the movie screen where we grapple with the drama of human life. Yet the essential questions persist: What is truth? What is justice? What is freedom? In this course we will learn how each has been addressed in the philosophical tradition and examine how a major film engages with it. From personal reflection, collaborative research, reading, discussion, and film analysis, we will delve into the complexities of each philosophical question in order to compose a sturdy definition for ourselves. Along the way, we will learn how to watch and analyze a film, how to grapple with persistent questions and the ambivalence they engender, and finally how to apply our philosophical study to address the practical problems of our day.