Film & Media Studies

The study of film and visual media is a central aspect of our idea of liberal arts as a “useful education.” The six-course film & media studies minor brings together critical analysis and creation of media and is distinguished by its flexibility and diversity. As an interdisciplinary program, we offer students a wide range of courses from numerous disciplines.

In addition to screenwriting and video production, we draw our courses from such departments as English, French, German, history, Italian and Spanish as well as East Asian, Africana and Middle East and women’s, gender & sexuality studies. This program, therefore, studies film cultures throughout virtually the entire world.

While mass media is part of our broad definition, our focus goes deeper than studying the content of media and instead includes a critical inquiry into the technological conditions that shape the content. In that sense, film counts as media and is only separated in our program title, as this reflects the established traditions of scholarly fields. Media courses may include inquiries into social media, television, sound technologies, photography, journalism, video games and other forms of media platforms.

In addition, we regularly encourage our students to spend their junior year in England at the University of East Anglia, which has one of the richest and most highly regarded film studies programs in Europe.