| FMST 101-01 |
Introduction to Film Studies
Instructor: Alex Bates, Erik Scaltriti
Course Description:
An introductory study of the preeminent art form of the 20th Century. The course will focus upon the fundamentals of film study as an academic discipline, including formal analysis of film narrative and cinematic technique (the art of film), contextual approaches to film, study of various film genres, and rudimentary experience with film production. Students will be exposed to aesthetically and historically important films from a number of cultural traditions.
|
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
ALTHSE 106 |
| FMST 102-01 |
Fundamentals of Digital Film Production
Instructor: Nevil Jackson
Course Description:
This course provides instruction in the basic aesthetic and technical aspects of digital film production, including writing, producing, directing, shooting, lighting, recording and mixing sound, and editing. Students will learn to harness digital tools while focusing on their roles as storytellers. Each participant will write and direct a video, rotating through various crew positions as they carry out exercises designed to deepen their knowledge of the different elements of moviemaking. Ultimately, students will collaborate in teams on short movies, which will be screened at the final class.
Offered spring semesters.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
BOSLER 213 |
| FMST 210-01 |
Black Horror
Instructor: Nevil Jackson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AMST 200-02. Horror films disturb our sense of peace. They terrify, shock, and alarm, provoking an unease that haunts the peripheries of our daily lives. Essentially, they tell us what, and whom, to fear. They are expressions of our deepest anxieties, and when examined critically, horror films can reveal societal and political concerns about race, gender, and class. So what happens when we look at the genre through the lens of Blackness in America? This course examines the history of Black representation in American horror films from the 1900s to the present. From D.W. Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation to Ryan Coogler's 2025 Sinners, we'll explore the trajectory of the horror genre, how it has reflected America's anxieties, it's role in shaping perceptions of Blackness, and how Black horror films have evolved from representations of oppressive ideology to expressions of Black existential thought. Cross-listed with FMST 210. Additional time slot: Film screenings are on Wednesdays, 6pm to 9pm.
|
06:00 PM-08:00 PM, W
ALTHSE 106
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 304 |
| FMST 210-02 |
Introduction to Documentary Film
Instructor: Nevil Jackson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AMST 200-03. What does it mean for a film to be "nonfiction" when every choice a filmmaker makes - what to film, what to exclude, and how to edit, shapes the reality we see on screen? This course introduces students to documentary film through an exploration of its major modes: observational, expository, reflexive, performative, participatory, and poetic. We will examine how documentaries reflect the world, construct truth, and represent communities, while also confronting ethical questions that arise in nonfiction storytelling.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 313 |
| FMST 210-03 |
Ancient Worlds on Film
Instructor: Scott Farrington
Course Description:
Cross-listed with CLST 140-01. An introduction to ancient Greek and Roman history and civilization (excluding mythology) through viewing popular films about this period and reading the historical and literary sources on which those films are based. The course focuses on the stories of remarkable men and women from antiquity, what those stories reveal Greek and Roman values and ideas, and ways to apply those insights critically to our own time. Additional time slot: Film showings are on Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:30pm.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
ALTHSE 106
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
EASTC 411 |
| FMST 211-01 |
Screenwriting
Instructor: Khris Baxter
Course Description:
Cross-listed with CRWR 219-02. This course will familiarize students with the fundamentals of good screenwriting: structure, theme, conflict, character, and dialogue. Students take part in weekly writing exercises as preparation for their final class project--creating a detailed outline of an original screenplay, and completing the first act. Topics include plot and subplot, character development, and commercial considerations such as format and genre. Students are required to read essential books on scriptwriting and to analyze several films and the screenplays on which they are based. Prerequisite: CRWR 218 or any film course. This course is cross-listed as CRWR 219.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
BOSLER 319 |
| FMST 220-01 |
The American Comic Book
Instructor: Greg Steirer
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 101-03. This course explores the history, aesthetics, and business aspects of the American comic book. Attention will also be given to the comic book's relationship with other media, such as animation and live-action film and television.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
EASTC 411 |
| FMST 220-03 |
Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Andy Bale
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARTH 120-01. An entry-level course in black-and-white photography emphasizing theory, history, and practice. Students learn how to create images, use cameras, develop film and make prints using conventional darkroom processes. Students will also be introduced to Photoshop as well as the basics of scanning and digital printing.
|
09:30 AM-11:29 AM, TR
GDYRST 101 |
| FMST 220-04 |
Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Andy Bale
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARTH 120-02. An entry-level course in black-and-white photography emphasizing theory, history, and practice. Students learn how to create images, use cameras, develop film and make prints using conventional darkroom processes. Students will also be introduced to Photoshop as well as the basics of scanning and digital printing.
|
01:30 PM-03:29 PM, TR
GDYRST 101 |
| FMST 220-05 |
Digital Studio 1: Image Manipulation and Experimental Processes
Instructor: Mary Climes
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARTH 131-01. This course will focus on 2-dimensional studio processes in the digital environment. It will also explore how digital processes can be used in conjunction with traditional processes like drawing, painting, and printmaking. The initial goal of this class will be to gain a thorough understanding of Adobe Photoshop for image manipulation. As the semester progresses, the class will explore uses of digital technology in contemporary art practice, including experimental processes. *Please note: this is not a photography course, some photo related processes will be part of the class, but those students looking for a more traditional approach to photography should consider the 221 Intro to Photography class.
|
09:30 AM-11:29 AM, MW
GDYRST 101 |
| FMST 220-06 |
Music in Media
Instructor: Jamie Reuland
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MUAC 221-01.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
WEISS 235 |
| FMST 310-01 |
Demystifying the Mafia Universe
Instructor: Nicoletta Marini Maio, Erik Scaltriti
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ITAL 323-01. Course taught in English. Mafia is synonymous with organized crime, violence, underworld trafficking, and black-market trade. It is identified as a secret organization that operates as a shadow state within a nation. However, due to popular stories and fictional narratives, the term Mafia has become so encrusted with legend and myth that it is difficult to establish its true nature and scope. What does Mafia really mean? How is it related to Southern Italian folklore and its Italian American account? How have Italian and American cultural representations of the Mafia converged, diverged, evolved, and persisted over the course of the past century? How have the cultural conditions of their production and reception shifted as Italians have ceased to occupy the privileged category of "the immigrant" in the popular American imagination, and as Italy has transitioned from a country of emigration to one of immigration? How has the Mafia evolved from a local organization to a global network in the 21st century, and how has cinema registered this shift? What are the unique origins and challenges of the Italian anti-Mafia resistance? Through an analysis of literary texts and films, this course explores representations of the Mafia in Italian and American film from the early years of the 19th century to today. In addition to raising key questions about cultural representation and power (stereotypes; immigration and national identity; racial, gender, and class difference), the course will also guide students through analysis of film genres and techniques. Additional time slot: Wednesday 1:30-2:20 pm is for students taking the class for FLIC credit.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
BOSLER 314 |
| FMST 310-02 |
War and Memory in East Asian Literature and Film
Instructor: Alex Bates
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 305-01. This class examines Japanese, Chinese, and some Korean and Taiwanese representations of the war fought in Asia between 1937 and 1945. This conflict affected the lives of millions and irrevocably changed the landscape of foreign relations in the region. We will investigate questions of collective (and contested) memory, victimization and responsibility, as well as how artists attempted to represent experiences that stretched the boundaries of imagination. Many of the issues we will discuss remain heated topics of debate in domestic and international politics today. This investigation into collective memory will involve in-depth engagement with fiction and films as well as scholarship relating to the war. By the end of the semester, students will gain experience expressing their ideas using the analytic and research tools that we practice in class. Students will evaluate responses to historical controversies in the realms of academia, politics, literature, film and popular culture, and consider how these debates shape the ways in which we remember and understand past conflicts.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
STERN 12 |
| FMST 310-04 |
Panoramas II: Embodiment and Film
Instructor: Margaret Frohlich
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LALC 300-01 and SPAN 325-01. Course taught in English.
What is the role of embodiment in creating an impactful film? How does it create powerful storytelling and engagement of our senses? How do films align us with a characters point of view or create emotional resonance with the world portrayed? This course explores the sensorial and emotional experiences of the film spectator; how thoughts and senses work together to make meaning; how intercultural cinema represents embodiment; and how films explore the affective and embodied aspects of human lives. Students will deepen their knowledge of embodiment through the analysis of a broad range of U.S. Latinx, Latin American and Spanish films. Assignments will include viewing multiple films, theoretical readings, and writing assignments. It is taught in English and films will include English subtitles.
|
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
BOSLER 314 |
| FMST 320-01 |
Cybernetics
Instructor: Greg Steirer
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 351-01. This course approaches cybernetics as a framework for thinking about how beings, machines, and environments respond to one another through shifting patterns of communication and control. We will explore how writers, filmmakers, and theorists have used cybernetic ideas to rethink knowledge, perception, ecology, and the shifting relations that join humans to the systems they inhabit. Moving from mid-century reflections on information and self-regulation to contemporary narratives that imagine automation, networks, adaptive environments, and ecological feedback, the class traces how cybernetic thought has opened new ways of understanding relation, agency, and interdependence. Texts may include fiction by E. M. Forster, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ted Chaing; theory by Norbert Wiener, Evelyn Fox Keller, and W. Ross Ashby; and films and television such as The Matrix Reloaded, Westworld, and Ghost in the Shell.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
EASTC 301 |
| Courses Offered in ARTH |
| ARTH 120-01 |
Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Andy Bale
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 220-03. An entry-level course in black-and-white photography emphasizing theory, history, and practice. Students learn how to create images, use cameras, develop film and make prints using conventional darkroom processes. Students will also be introduced to Photoshop as well as the basics of scanning and digital printing.
|
09:30 AM-11:29 AM, TR
GDYRST 101 |
| ARTH 120-02 |
Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Andy Bale
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 220-04. An entry-level course in black-and-white photography emphasizing theory, history, and practice. Students learn how to create images, use cameras, develop film and make prints using conventional darkroom processes. Students will also be introduced to Photoshop as well as the basics of scanning and digital printing.
|
01:30 PM-03:29 PM, TR
GDYRST 101 |
| Courses Offered in CLST |
| CLST 140-01 |
Ancient Worlds on Film
Instructor: Scott Farrington
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 210-03. Additional time slot: Film showings are on Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:30pm. An introduction to ancient Greek and Roman history and civilization (excluding mythology) through viewing popular films about this period and reading the historical and literary sources on which those films are based. The course focuses on the stories of remarkable men and women from antiquity, what those stories reveal Greek and Roman values and ideas, and ways to apply those insights critically to our own time.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
ALTHSE 106
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
EASTC 411 |
| Courses Offered in CRWR |
| CRWR 219-02 |
Screenwriting
Instructor: Khris Baxter
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 211-01. This course will familiarize students with the fundamentals of good screenwriting: structure, theme, conflict, character, and dialogue. Students take part in weekly writing exercises as preparation for their final class project--creating a detailed outline of an original screenplay, and completing the first act. Topics include plot and subplot, character development, and commercial considerations such as format and genre. Students are required to read essential books on scriptwriting and to analyze several films and the screenplays on which they are based.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
BOSLER 319 |
| Courses Offered in ENGL |
| ENGL 351-01 |
Cybernetics
Instructor: Greg Steirer
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 320-01. This course approaches cybernetics as a framework for thinking about how beings, machines, and environments respond to one another through shifting patterns of communication and control. We will explore how writers, filmmakers, and theorists have used cybernetic ideas to rethink knowledge, perception, ecology, and the shifting relations that join humans to the systems they inhabit. Moving from mid-century reflections on information and self-regulation to contemporary narratives that imagine automation, networks, adaptive environments, and ecological feedback, the class traces how cybernetic thought has opened new ways of understanding relation, agency, and interdependence. Texts may include fiction by E. M. Forster, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ted Chaing; theory by Norbert Wiener, Evelyn Fox Keller, and W. Ross Ashby; and films and television such as The Matrix Reloaded, Westworld, and Ghost in the Shell.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
EASTC 301 |
| Courses Offered in MUAC |
| MUAC 221-01 |
Music in Media
Instructor: Jamie Reuland
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 220-06. Music has been a central participant in digital storytelling since the technological advances of nineteenth-century opera. Through critical reading, listening, and viewing, you will become familiar with influential theories of musical representation, common compositional strategies for scene-building, and analytical modes of criticism and interpretation of music in film, television, video games, and other forms of media. The ability to read music is not required for this course and non-musicians are welcome and encouraged. This course is cross-listed as FMST 210.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
WEISS 235 |