FAMS 101: Introduction to Film & Media Studies
This is a foundational course that introduces students to basic concepts, theories and methods that are central to film and media studies. We will study the histories and genres of cinema and formal techniques such as lighting, editing and sound to develop a critical understanding of film as a dominant mode of representation. We will also study other forms of electronic media to gain a better understanding of the perspectives and practices of emerging technologies and forms of distribution. Through required weekly screenings, readings, writing and regular discussion, we will analyze these various kinds of screen medias as they influence our world. FAMS F course. CSS HUM course. No prerequisites. Katherine Groo. TR 2:45-4:00 PM & M 7:00-9:50 PM
FAMS/DOC 150: Introduction to Documentary Storymaking
This course is an introduction to digital documentary story making. It merges the critical study of documentary media with the hands-on construction of documentary stories waiting to be found in local communities. Working with tools of the documentary arts-video, still images, audio, writing-students will acquire the foundational skills of media production and effective story telling while absorbing and analyzing rich examples of documentary story telling over time and place. CCS HUM course. Open to all majors. No prerequisites. Andy Smith. M 7:00-10:00 PM
FAMS 201: Making Media I
This hands-on course introduces students to the creative and technical aspects of media production, and models foundational practices in productive collaboration and ethical media making. The course provides a basic understanding of framing, composition, and storytelling through the use of sound and images. Students work with lighting, audio recording, digital video cameras, and non-linear editing through a series of hands-on assignments, readings, screenings, discussion of assigned exercises, and workshops with digital equipment. FAMS P course. Prerequisite: FAMS 101 or permission of instructor. Andy Smith. TR 9:30-12:15 PM
FAMS 202: Making Media 2
This hands-on production course is the second course in the media production sequence begun in FAMS 201 and builds on the fundamentals of lighting, sound, camera, and editing. Students will further develop their digital filmmaking techniques through increasingly complex projects. They will work on individual and collaborative media assignments that will culminate in a public screening at the end of the semester. FAMS P course. Prerequisite: FAMS 201 or permission of instructor. Adam MacHose. TR 1:10-4:00 PM
FAMS 255: Women Make Movies/Movies Make Women
This non-production course examines the work of women filmmakers and how women have historically been constructed (and not constructed) in cinema. We will examine issues of gender, spectatorship, sexuality, race, representation and authorship as they intersect with images of women such as savior, victim, femme fatale, mother and artist. FAMS H course. CCS W course. Prerequisite: FAMS 101 or WGS 101 or permission of instructor. Nandini Sikand. MF 11:00-12:15 PM & W 11:00-12:50 PM
FAMS 275: World Pictures: Visual Studies and Media Cultures
What is an image? What is vision? How and why do we look, gaze, and spectate? This course aims to introduce students to global Visual Studies, including the central debates and theoretical frameworks that inform the field, along with the contemporary media formations that have motivated its development. Students will learn to analyze images and media using a set of critical tools and concepts (e.g., the gaze, interpellation, embodiment, circulation, commodity fetishism, objectivity, the archive, biopower, the anthropocene, post-humanism, etc.), and consider the role that images and media play in constructing categories of racial, sexual, ethnic, geographic, and biological difference. Finally, this course will challenge students to consider the stakes of disciplinary boundaries and interdisciplinary thought. FAMS T course. CCS HUM/GM1/GM2 course (pending approval). Katherine Groo. TR 11:00-12:15 PM
FAMS/AMS 362: American Cinema of the 1970s
Called a “Decade Under the Influence,” and the “Last Golden Era of American Film,” the 1970s were a cultural pivot point and an astonishingly rich extended moment in the history of American Cinema. This course examines important American films and filmmakers of the late 1960s and 1970s and the cultural contexts from which they emerge. Students will learn to treat films as complex texts and to interpret cinema as a potent cultural force. FAMS H course. CCS W course. Prerequisites: FAMS 101 or permission of the instructor. Andy Smith. TR 1:15-4:00 PM
FAMS/HIST 363: Imperialism, War and Visual Culture in East Asia, 1874-1945
To understand how Japanese citizens, and human beings more generally, are mobilized for war and conquest, we will analyze several forms of mass media—woodblock prints, posters, photographs, monuments, and others—with a focus on pictures (still and moving). The goal here is to help us navigate our contemporary media environment as citizens of well-armed nation-states amid the visual spectacle of war. In the course of visualizing foreigners, enemies, allies, and compatriots at war, image-makers have created our modern geographies of community and difference, in both East Asia and beyond. This course aims to understand these processes with an eye to applying them to contemporary phenomena. FAMS H course. CCS W course. Prerequisites: FAMS 101 or permission of the instructor. Paul Barclay. TR 1:15-2:30 PM
FAMS 420: Capstone
This required course for FAMS majors is a chance for students to synthesize their course of study into one major individual project. The capstone is a workshop-based experience where students design and complete either a critical or creative (or some combination of the two) media project that results in a public presentation of their most advanced work as FAMS majors. FAMS C course. Open to Senior FAMS majors only. Nandini Sikand. MW 1:15-4:00 PM
ADDITIONAL FAMS ELECTIVE COURSES FOR FALL 2016
A&S 245: Mass Communications & Society (D. Shulman) – TR 11:00-12:15 PM
ENG 231: Journalistic Writing (K. Parrish) – W 7:00-9:50 PM
ENG 251: Screenwriting (A. Ohlin) – MW 9:30-10:45 AM
REL 308: Visual Culture & Religious Identity (J. Carr) – M 7:00-9:50 PM
SPA 315: Intro to Visual Cultures Spain (K. Stafford) – MW 11:00-12:15 PM