Return to Table of Contents
Go to Course Listings
Go to bottom of document
Go to: Program Requirements
Go to: Summary of Requirements
Cinema and Media Studies
(See also the Film Studies
Center link for additional information)
Program Coordinator: Miriam Hansen, G-B 330, 702-8028
Program Assistant: Joe Carey, C 310B, 702-6880
E-mail: cine-media@uchicago.edu
World Wide Web: http://www-college.uchicago.edu/FSC/CMS.html
Program of Study
Beginning with the 1996-97 academic year (pending approval by the College
Council) a concentration in Cinema and Media Studies will be offered that
will lead to the Bachelor of Arts degree. This new concentration provides
a framework in which College students can approach film and related media
from a variety of historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives. Focusing
on the study of the moving image (and its sound accompaniments), the program
enables students to analyze how meanings are created through representational
devices specific to the medium and its institutions. At the same time, the
goal is to situate the cinema (and related media) in broader cultural, social,
and aesthetic contexts, such as visual culture and the history of the senses;
modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde; narrative, poetics, and rhetoric;
commercial entertainment forms, leisure and consumer culture; sexuality
and gender; constructions of ethnic, racial, and national identities; and
transnational media production and circulation, globalization, and global
media publics.
Application to the Program. Students who wish to concentrate in Cinema
and Media Studies should consult with the program coordinator during the
spring quarter of their first year in the College. Participation in the
program must be approved by the program coordinator before enrollment. The
program is open to members of the Class of 1999 and subsequent classes.
Program Requirements
The concentration requires twelve courses and a B.A. research paper.
Course work is divided into a major field specifically concerned
with cinema and a minor field focusing on a separate but related
area or topic.
Major Field. Of the eight required courses in the major field,
students must take two introductory courses, one in methods of film analysis
(Introduction to Film I) and one in modes of film practice (Introduction
to Film II); if possible, these introductory courses should be taken in
sequence and should be completed by the end of the third year. In the autumn
quarter of the fourth year, students are expected to participate in a senior
colloquium that will help them conceptualize their B.A. paper and address
more advanced questions of methodology and theory. The remaining five courses
should be chosen according to the following distribution:
1. Two courses in film history (at least one course in a cinema tradition
other than mainstream American).
2. Two courses dealing with genre (e.g., horror film, musical, and experimental
film) or individual directors, actors or stars (one course in this category
may be replaced with a course in film/videomaking).
3. One course in film theory, media theory, or theories of audiovisual representation.
Minor Field. In addition, students must take a cluster of four courses
in a separate area that can be brought to bear on the study of cinema in
significant ways. Such clusters could be imagined, for instance, as focusing
on other media and art forms (e.g., photography, video, the visual arts,
architecture, literature, theater, opera, and dance); cross-disciplinary
topics or sets of problems (e.g., the urban environment, violence and pornography,
censorship, copyright and industry regulation, concepts of the public sphere,
and globalization); subfields of area studies (e.g., East Asian, South Asian,
African-American, and Jewish studies); and traditional disciplines (e.g.,
history, anthropology/ethnography, philosophy, psychology, linguistics,
sociology, and political economy). Students develop these clusters in consultation
with their concentration adviser and are expected to write a brief essay
explaining the rationale for and coherence of their minor field by February
1 of the third year.
B.A. Research Paper. The B.A. paper is required of all students in the
program. During the spring quarter of the third year, students will meet
with their concentration adviser to determine the focus of their B.A. project,
a process to be concluded by May 15; they are expected to begin reading
and research during the summer. During the autumn quarter of the fourth
year, they should be prepared to present an outline of their project to
the senior colloquium; writing and revising will take place during the winter
quarter. The final version is due by the fourth week of the quarter in which
the student plans to graduate. The B.A. project will typically consist of
a substantial essay that engages a research topic in the history, theory
and criticism of film and/or other media. In exceptional cases, students
may apply to the concentration adviser to substitute a creative project
for the essay, provided they have taken at least one course in the respective
area of production (e.g., film/videomaking and screenwriting). Any creative
project should include a research component which the student is expected
to describe in an accompanying report. Students may choose to register for
the B.A. project as a course equivalent to one free-elective credit.
Special Honors. Students who have done outstanding work in the program
and have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 or better may be
nominated for Special Honors. These honors are reserved for the student
whose B.A. project shows exceptional intellectual and/or creative merit
in the judgment of the first and the second readers, the program coordinator,
and the Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division.
Summary of Requirements
2 introductory courses
1 Senior Colloquium
5 major field courses (as specified)
4 minor field courses (as specified)
- B.A. paper
12
Advising. Each student will have a program adviser who is a member of
the core faculty (see following list). By the beginning of the third year,
the student is expected to get his or her program of study approved by both
the adviser and the program coordinator. For the construction of their minor
field, students are encouraged to take courses and consult with members
of the resource faculty (see following list).
Core Faculty
THOMAS GUNNING, Professor, Department of Art History and the College
MIRIAM HANSEN, Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor in the
Humanities, Department of English Language & Literature, Committee on
Art & Design, and the College
JAMES LASTRA, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language &
Literature and the College
LAURA LETINSKY, Assistant Professor, Committee on Art & Design
JOEL M. SNYDER, Professor, Department of Art, Committees on Art & Design
and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College
KATIE TRUMPENER, Associate Professor, Departments of Germanic Studies and
Comparative Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities,
and the College
YURI TSIVIAN, Professor, Departments of Art History, Comparative Literature,
Slavic Languages and Literatures and the College
EUGENE WANG, Assistant Professor, Department of Art
REBECCA WEST, Professor, Department of Romance Languages & Literatures
and the College
Resource Faculty
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language
& Literature and the College
ARJUN APPADURAI, Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professor, Departments
of South Asian Languages & Civilizations and Anthropology and the College
LEORA AUSLANDER, Associate Professor, Department of History and the College
LAUREN BERLANT, Professor, Department of English Language & Literature
and the College
HOMI BHABHA, Professor, Department of English Language & Literature
and Art and the College
VINCENZO BINETTI, Assistant Professor, Department of Romance Languages &
Literatures and the College
CAROL BRECKENRIDGE, Senior Lecturer, Division of the Humanities and the
College
WILLIAM L. BROWN, Associate Professor, Department of English Language &
Literature and the College
JAMES CHANDLER, Professor, Department of English Language & Literature,
General Studies in the Humanities, and the College
GEORGE CHAUNCEY, Associate Professor, Department of History and the College
JEAN COMAROFF, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Committee on Human
Nutrition & Nutritional Biology, Morris Fishbein Center for the History
of Science and Medicine, African and African- American Studies, and the
College
MILTON EHRE, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
and the College
MARTHA FELDMAN, Assistant Professor, Department of Music and the College
CLAUDINE FRANK, Assistant Professor, Department of Romance Languages &
Literatures and the College
SANDER L. GILMAN, Henry R. Luce Professor in the Liberal Arts of Human Biology,
Professor, Departments of Germanic Studies and Psychiatry and the College
NEIL HARRIS, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor, Department of History,
Committees on Geographic Studies and General Studies in the Humanities,
and the College
THOMAS HOLT, James Westfall Thompson Professor, Department of History and
the College
LOREN KRUGER, Associate Professor, Department of English Language &
Literature and the College
W. J. T. MITCHELL, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor, Departments
of English Language & Literature and Art, Committees on Art & Design
and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College
C. M. NAIM, Associate Professor, Department of South Asian Languages &
Civilizations
DAVID POWELSTOCK, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages &
Literatures and the College
WILLIAM F. SIBLEY, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages
& Civilizations and the College
KATHERINE TAYLOR, Associate Professor, Department of Art and the College
TAMARA TROJANOWSKA, Assistant Professor,
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the College
TERENCE S. TURNER, Professor, Department of Anthropology and the College
MARTHA WARD, Associate Professor, Department of Art, Committee on Art &
Design, and the College
Go to top of document