Cinema and Media Studies
Program Coordinator: Miriam Hansen, Wb 403, 702-8028
Program Assistant: Joseph Carey, G-B 405, 834-1077
E-mail: cine-media@uchicago.edu
World Wide Web: http://www-college.uchicago.edu/FSC/CMS.html
Program of Study
The concentration in Cinema and Media Studies provides a framework within
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 theory, poetics, and
rhetoric; commercial entertainment forms; leisure and consumer culture;
sexuality and gender; constructions of ethnic, racial, and national identities;
transnational media production and circulation, globalization, and global
media publics.
Students wishing to enter the program should consult with the program coordinator
in the spring quarter of their freshman year. Participation in the program
must be approved by the program coordinator before registration.Program
RequirementsThe 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 (Cinema and Media
Studies 101) and one in modes of film practice (Cinema and Media Studies
102); if possible, these introductory courses should be taken in sequence
and 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 helps 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 (for
example, horror film, musical, or experimental film) or individual directors,
actors, or stars (one course in this category may be replaced with a course
in film/video making); 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 (for example, photography, video, the visual arts, architecture,
literature, theater, opera, or dance); cross-disciplinary topics or sets
of problems (for example the urban environment, violence and pornography,
censorship, copyright and industry regulation, concepts of the public sphere,
or globalization); subfields of area studies (for example, East Asian, South
Asian, African-American, or Jewish studies) and traditional disciplines,
such as history, anthropology/ethnography, philosophy, psychology, linguistics,
sociology, or 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. A B.A. research paper is required of all students in the
program. During the spring quarter of junior year, students meet with their
concentration adviser to determine the focus of their B.A. project, a process
to be concluded by May 15; they 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 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 typically consists 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/video
making or screenwriting). Any creative project should include a research
component that 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 higher 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 has a program adviser who is a member of
the core faculty. 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. Consult the following lists for the names of core and resource
faculty members.
Core Faculty
TOM 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 the Visual Arts, and the College
JAMES LASTRA, Assistant Professor, Department
of English Language & Literature and the College
LAURA LETINSKY, Assistant Professor, Committee
on the Visual Arts
JOEL M. SNYDER, Professor, Department of Art,
Committees on the Visual Arts and General Studies in the Humanities, and
the College
KATIE TRUMPENER, Associate Professor, Departments
of Germanic Studies, History, English Language & Literature, and Comparative
Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College
YURI TSIVIAN, Professor, Departments of Art History,
Comparative Literature, Slavic Languages & Literatures, and the College
EUGENE WANG, Assistant Professor, Department of
Art History and the College
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, 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, Chester D. Tripp Professor in the
Humanities, Department of English Language & Literature, Art History,
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, Associate Member, Department of South
Asian Languages & Civilizations
WILLIAM L. BROWN, Associate Professor, Department
of English Language & Literature and the College
JAMES CHANDLER, Professor, Department of English
Language & Literature, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities,
and the College
GEORGE CHAUNCEY, Associate Professor, Department
of History and the College
JEAN COMAROFF, Bernard E. and Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished
Service Professor, Department of Anthropology; Committee on Human Nutrition
& Nutritional Biology, Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science
& Medicine, and the College; Committee on African & African-American
Studies; Chairman, Department of Anthropology
MILTON EHRE, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages
& Literatures and the College
MARTHA FELDMAN, Assistant Professor, Department
of Music 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 History, Committees on the Visual Arts 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 CollegeERIC L. SANTNER, Harriet
and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Modern European Jewish History, Department
of Germanic Studies and the College
WILLIAM F. SIBLEY, Associate Professor, Department
of East Asian Languages & Civilizations and the College
KATHERINE TAYLOR, Associate Professor, Department
of Art History 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 History, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College
Courses
101. Introduction to Film I (=ArtH 190, CMS 101,
COVA 253, Eng 108, GS Hum 200). PQ: This
is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually,
but taking them in sequence is helpful. The
first part introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed
through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial
oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the
notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system
of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes
of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith,
Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles. T. Gunning. Winter.
102. Introduction to Film II (=CMS 102, Eng 109, GS Hum 201).
PQ: This is the second part of a two-quarter course. The two
parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful.
Building on the skills of formal analysis and knowledge of basic cinematic
conventions acquired in the first part, the second part focuses on intertextual
and contextual problems, such as those associated with genre, authorship,
stars, and various responses to the classical Hollywood film. Modes of film
practice studied include documentary, European national cinemas, "art
cinema," animation, and various avant garde movements. J. Lastra.
Spring.
212. Immigrant Fiction and Film (=CMS 212, Eng 237). This
course surveys fiction and film by and about (mostly urban) immigrants in
the first half of the twentieth century. The competition between narrative
and visual paradigms (literature's reaction to new visual mass media such
as film) is crucial to the course. Readings and screenings are organized
around four issues and genres: strategies and politics of representation
of the early immigrant ghetto, immigrant autobiography, immigrant melodrama,
and the emergence of class in the 1930s. Authors include Abraham Cahan,
Sui Sin Far, Anzia Yezierska, Mike Gold, and Pietro Di Donato; films include
early ghetto films, The Cheat, The Italian, Hungry Hearts, and The
Jazz Singer. S. Haenni. Spring.
226. Postwar Germany and the New German Cinema (=CMS
226, Eng 284/484, GS Hum 211/311, German 222/412). This
course examines the emergence and development of the New German Cinema in
relation to postwar German filmmaking and to concurrent New Waves elsewhere
in Eastern and Western Europe, especially in the German Democratic Republic.
We pay equal attention to the aesthetic strategies of individual films,
to their reflections on history, memory, and subjectivity, and to the political
and cultural contexts for the New German Cinema. Course may include films
by Kluge, Schlöndorff, Fassbinder, Herzog, Straub and Huillet, Wenders,
Lilienthal, Monk, Kotulla, Sander, Sanders-Brahms, Schroeter, Reitz, Staudte,
Käutner, Maetzig, Beyer, Klein, and Wolf. Texts in English and the
original; all films with subtitles. K. Trumpener. Autumn.
234. Literature and Italian Cinema: A Fatal Attraction
(=CMS 234, Ital 286/386). PQ: Knowledge of Italian helpful.
This course covers the various and complex relations between cinema
and literature. These relations go beyond the parasitic usage of literature
in the adaptation of classic masterpieces. We address the ways literature
participates in cinema's range of stylistic expression; how it figured in
the construction of a national language; and how it in turn became a medium
for preserving the memory of cinema during the 1930s. We discuss writers
ranging from Gozzano, Verga, and Capuana through Pirandello, and D'Annunzio;
screenwriters such as Zavattini and Flaiano; as well as literary devices
and principles in the work of Visconti, Pasolini, and Rosi. G. P. Brunetta.
Autumn.
243. Japanese Cinema (=ArtH 281/381, CMS 243, EALC
245). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course,
or consent of instructor. This course surveys
Japanese cinema through the 1960s. Through our focus on three directors
(Ozu Yasujiro, Mizoguchi Kenji, and Kurosawa Akira) we deal with the recent
scholarship on Japanese films, particularly debates among Noel Burch, Donald
Richie, and David Bordwell about the specificity of Japanese cinema in relation
to Japanese culture and in opposition to Hollywood cinema. We study each
director in relation to pictorial and narrative values, use of traditional
Japanese culture and contemporary social issues, and attitudes towards Western
filmmaking. T. Gunning. Spring.
244. Chinese Cinema (=ArtH 194, CMS 244, EALC 240).
PQ: Knowledge of Chinese helpful but not
required. This course covers Chinese cinema
from its earliest inception in the beginning of the century to works of
recent decades. Issues explored include the cinematic appropriation of theatrical
traditions, the ordering of cinematic narration through vernacular architectural
forms, the persistence of melodramatic impulse, the making of lyrical mode,
and the taste of Chinese urban spectatorship. E. Wang. Winter.
246. Cinema and Literature of the Pacific War (=CMS 246, EALC 264).
PQ: Knowledge of Asian languages not required. Focusing on the
Sino-Japanese conflict, this course offers an introduction to the historical
and theoretical expressions of war through cinematic and literary production.
Conceived as primary instruments of war by both China and Japan, film and
literature were used to create and promote shared attitudes toward the conflict
in both the war and postwar periods. Attention is paid to issues of aggression
and resistance, representations of the "other," the role of film
and literature in the production of ideologies, and the importance of audience/reader
reception in the success of failure of such attempted ideological formations.
S. Stephenson. Autumn.
262. The Films of Joseph Von Sternberg (=ArtH 292/392,
CMS 262, Eng 288/488). PQ: Any 100-level
ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This
course attempts to explore the contradictions of Sternberg within the classical
Hollywood system. His role as auteur and as part of the studio logic, and
his relation to the popular glamour (as well as to modernistic techniques)
demonstrate his tension with the Hollywood system and the role he played
within it. Sternberg's relation to Marlene Dietrich is also examined. The
course closely considers films themselves, as well as studio publicity,
fan discourse, censorship boards, and other contextual documents. T.
Gunning. Winter.
263. Capra and Hollywood (=CMS 263, Eng 236/486).
PQ: This course fulfills the American film history requirement in the
Cinema and Media Studies concentration. Primary focus is on Capra's
Hollywood narrative films from the 1930s and 1940s, especially It Happened
One Night, You Can't Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, and It's a Wonderful Life, as
well as lesser-known work in his oeuvre. It also attempts to come to terms
with his preoccupation with his authorship of the films he directed, which
means some attention not only to his signature gestures in the films but
also his own biography. Finally, we consider recent examples of films that
invoke or employ "the Capra effect," beginning with Preston Sturges's
Sullivan's Travels, and extending to such recent films as
The Hudsucker Proxy, Hero, It Could Happen to You, Groundhog Day, and
Forrest Gump. J. Chandler. Autumn.
275. Theories of the Photographic Image and Films
(=ArtH 272/372, CMS 275, COVA 255, GS Hum 233/333).
PQ: COVA 101, 102, or 100-level ArtH course, or consent of instructor.
This course is an introduction and survey of theories concerning photography
and cinema. A variety of works by the following authors, among others, is
discussed: Stanley Cavell, Erwin Panofsky, André Bazin, Christian
Metz, Susan Sontag, Edward Weston, Ernst Gombrich, Nelson Goodman, and John
Szarkowski. J. Snyder. Winter.
276. Beginning Photography
(=CMS 276, COVA 240). PQ: COVA 101, 102, or consent of instructor.
A camera and light meter are required. Photography affords a relatively
simple and accessible means for making pictures. Through demonstration,
students are introduced to technical procedures and basic skills, and begin
to establish criteria for artistic expression. Possibilities and limitations
inherent to the medium are topics of classroom discussion. Class sessions
and field trips to local exhibitions investigate the contemporary photograph
in relation to its historical and social context. Course work culminates
in a portfolio of works exemplary of the student's understanding of the
medium. Lab fee $40. L. Letinsky. Autumn, Winter.
277. Advanced Photography
(=CMS 277, COVA 278). PQ: COVA 101 or 102, and 240 or 241, or consent
of instructor. Throughout the quarter, students concentrate on a set
of issues and ideas that expand upon their experience and knowledge, and
that have particular relevance to them. All course work is directed towards
the production of a cohesive body of either color or black-and-white photographs.
An investigation of contemporary and historic photographic issues informs
the students' photographic practice and includes visits to local exhibitions,
critical readings, darkroom techniques, and class and individual critiques.
Lab fee $40. L. Letinsky. Spring.
278. Visual Culture (=ArtH 258/358, CMS 278, Eng 126/326).
PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This
course explores the fundamental questions in the interdisciplinary study
of visual culture: What are the cultural (and, by the same token, natural)
components in the structure of visual experience? What is seeing? What is
a spectator? What is the difference between visual and verbal representation?
How do visual media exert power, elicit desire and pleasure, and construct
the boundaries of subjective and social experience in the private and public
sphere? How do questions of politics, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity inflect
the construction of visual semiosis? W. J. T. Mitchell. Winter.
282. Styles of Performance
and Expression from Stage to Screen (=ArtH 293/393, CMS 282, Russ 280/380).
PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor.
This course focuses on the history of acting styles in silent film (1895-1930),
mapping "national" styles of acting that emerged during the 1910s
(American, Danish, Italian, and Russian), and various "acting schools"
that proliferated during the 1920s ("Expressionist Acting" and
"Kuleshov's Workshop"). We discuss film acting in the context
of various systems of stage acting (Delsarte, Stanislavsky, and Meyerhold)
and the visual arts. Y. Tsivian. Autumn.
287. The Media and the Virtual Public (=CMS 287, Eng
248). This course surveys the discourses
surrounding four key communications media of the twentieth century: film,
radio, video, and computer networks. During the initial phase of all these
technologies, there were many speculations about how they would create a
more prosperous existence for the entire population. Such fantasies were
(and are) exchanged very seriously in fiction, art, and the popular press,
as well as through the texts transmitted by the four media in question;
all these outlets are discussed, with emphasis on film as a case study.
P. Young. Spring.