FAMS 101: Introduction to Film and Media Studies
This is a foundational course that introduces students to key concepts, theories, and methods in film and media studies. During the first weeks of the course, we will explore the basic elements of film form (e.g., lighting, editing, and sound) and study the ways in which these forms shape the moving image. We will also pursue a set of theoretical questions as we move between crucial moments in the global production of film and distinct categories of cinematic expression (e.g., narrative, animation, documentary, and experimental). During the final weeks of this course, we will shift to consider television, video, and new media. No prerequisites. FAMS F & CCS course. (HUM) Katherine Groo – TR 2:45-4:00 PM (class) & M 7:00-9:50 PM (lab), Landis Cinema – Buck Hall
FAMS 102 Integrated Practice I (Previously Making Media 1)
This course introduces students to the creative, theoretical, and practical aspects of media production and is designed to provide a foundational understanding of audio-visual storytelling. Students will learn the technical fundamentals of composition, lighting, audio recording, digital video cameras, and non-linear editing. The class will be grounded in deep discussions of ethical media-making and responsible practices that move between past, present, and future. Prerequisite FAMS 101 or permission of instructor. FAMS P course. Drew Swedberg – TR 1:10-4:00 PM, Media 1 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS 103: Foundations in Writing and Research (W)
This course will introduce students to the practice of writing and researching in the discipline of Film and Media Studies. Students will learn to develop strong research questions, identify relevant scholarly sources, draft a bibliography and write a literature review, conduct archival research, and write and revise a research paper. They will develop these skills as we explore media-historical case studies from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This course is designed to be a genuinely collaborative endeavor. Students will contribute to the course materials through their research; they will learn about moving image technology and teach others what they learn. Students will also participate in field trips to media archives, museums, and other historical media sites. (W) Prerequisite FAMS 101. Katherine Groo – M 1:10-4:00 PM, Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS/ENG 116: Film and Literature
This course will explore the themes of protest and rebellion in 20th and 21st century African American literature and film. We will discuss how a film or piece of literature protests and rebels in content, form and distribution. To that end, we will also discuss the socio-political context from which literary and cinematic protests and rebellions emerge. As opposed to a comprehensive exploration of both mediums, the course explores specific themes related to protest and rebellion including: Slavery and Its Afterlives in Literature and Film; Independent Black Cinema and the L.A. Film Rebellion; Rebellious Gazes: Viewership and Criticism, and the Mediatic and Literary Elements of the Movement for Black Lives. Randi Gill-Sadler – TR 9:30-10:45 AM, Pardee 329
FAMS 140: Media and Mass Incarceration
In this course, held primarily inside Northampton County Jail in Easton, we will learn about the basics of mass incarceration in the United States and the ways in which media has contributed to, reified and changed the discourse around mass incarceration. The course introduces students to basic, but critical concepts of the criminal justice system and similarly, basic concepts, and methods central to film and media studies, to better understanding of our community in the Lehigh Valley. (GM1, HUM, V) Nandini Sikand – M 6:30-9:50 PM, Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St. & Northampton Community Jail
FAMS 202: Integrated Practice II (Previously Making Media 2)
In this hands-on production course, students create stop motion animations, digital cutout animations, and green-screen composite videos using Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, DSLR cameras, the TV studio, the audio booth, and the computer lab. Prerequisite FAMS 201 or permission of instructor. FAMS P course. Adam MacHose – MW 1:10-4:00 PM, Media 1 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS 221: Media Theory (W)
With the advent of photography, film, and digital media, visuality became a ubiquitous and highly contested form of perception. What lends images their power and appeal? How do visual media elicit desire, inscribing differences of race, gender, class, and religion? What production practices and critical discourses respond to today’s politicized images and cultures of performativity, representation, and spectacle? This course introduces students to the key concepts and theories of the multifaceted fields of media theory and visual culture. FAMS T & CCS course. (HUM) Dennis Johannßen – WF 11:00 AM -12:15 PM, Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS 235: Media Histories: Endangered Worlds
This course explores the history of film’s engagement with nature, environmental discourses, and the current ecological crisis. We will discuss how representations of landscapes, animals, food production, catastrophes, and robots challenged and transformed our concepts and images of nature. Students will learn about the history of environmental criticism in film, the shift from nature to climate and the environment, ways of depicting injustice and exploitation, and the key role that cinema and digital media played for ecological movements. FAMS H & CCS course. (HUM) Dennis Johannßen – MWF 10:00-10:50 AM, Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS/ENG 252: Writing for Television (W)
In this class, we will be exploring the craft of writing for television. We will practice how to develop a premise and populate the world of a TV show with intriguing characters and dramatic conflicts. We will discuss scene design, the structure of both half-hour comedic and hour-long dramatic episodes, series-long story arcs, and how to write compressed but believable dialogue. We will develop a critical vocabulary for analyzing TV shows as writers, and will also examine the shifting landscape of the industry as it relates to cable and internet distribution. Writing assignments will build from short loglines to developed scripts. Particular emphasis will be placed on drafting and revision. (W) Mikael Awake – T 1:10-4:00PM, Pardee 102B
FAMS/REES 270: National and Transnational Cinemas: Soviet and Russian Cinema
With the dawn of the Soviet state in 1917, aware of the tremendous potential for cinema as a political tool, Vladimir Lenin declared cinema “the most important art form.” During the cultural revolution of the 1920s and 30s, Russian directors did some of the most innovative work in film history. In this course, students will investigate major topics in film form, theory, and genre, the role of cinema in shaping Russian culture and politics, and the challenges facing Soviet filmmakers under a planned economy with unique production and distribution norms. Throughout the course we will examine what film can teach us about key shifts in Soviet values and ideology. Special attention will be paid to Ukraine’s national cinema, in addition to Soviet films with profound global orientations and lasting cultural impact. Students who sign up for the REES cross-listing do not need a prerequisite. Prerequisite FAMS 101 or permission. FAMS H & CCS, (HUM, GM1, GM2). Lindsay Ceballos – TR 9:30-10:45 AM (class) & T 7:00-9:50 PM (lab), Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St.
FAMS 302: Special Topics in Integrated Practice III-Experimental Cinema
Experimental cinema has been described in many ways; “poetic,” “discordant,” “dream-like,” “exploratory,” “sub-cultural” and “innovative” but it is an aesthetic that has always challenged the norm. In this course we will develop an understanding of filmic principles that explore and challenge mainstream narrative and/or documentary structures, collectively known as experimental cinema or avant-garde cinema. Using digital cinema and 16 mm film, we will focus on a theoretical understanding to “experiment” with content, structure, technique, and style, with an emphasis on developing a unique way of representation, and ask what it means to develop such an “experimental” sensibility in our work. Nandini Sikand – MW 1:10-3:00 PM, Media 3 (102) – Buck Hall
FAMS/PHIL 345: Philosophy of Film (W)
This course is an examination of fundamental questions on the nature, interpretation, experience, and evaluation of film. Special attention will be paid to film’s essential nature, and to how such nature affects how films engage the viewer, hence perhaps how they should be evaluated. Topics will include: the distinctive nature of the moving image compared to other forms of representation; cinema as an art form; film authorship; colorization; the nature of film horror; and the relationship between film and ethics. FAMS T & CCS course. (GM2, HUM, V, W) Alessandro Giovannelli – TR 9:30-10:45 AM, Pardee 320A
FAMS 385: Educating the Ear
This course traces sound theory across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From the sound obsessions and anxieties of silent cinema to the disruptive sound experiments of the Fluxus collective to the expansive field of contemporary sound art and its remixture of the historical archive, this course considers the aesthetic, political, and epistemological possibilities of sound. Prerequisite: FAMS 101 or permission of instructor. FAMS T & CCS course. (HUM) Katherine Groo – TR 11:00-12:15 PM (class) & W 1:10-4:00 PM (lab), Media 2 – 248 N. 3rd St.