Summer 2024 Undergraduate Courses

Antonia Lant
Mondays-Fridays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room TBA
CINE-GT 1325 / Class # 5301
4 points

This course surveys the film musical genre from the coming of sound to the present. We examine the musical’s relation to technological changes (the use of optical sound, dubbing, widescreen, motion capture) and also to social, cultural, and economic transformations (the Depression, rise of teen audiences, changing priorities in casting, innovations in music). By paying close attention to editing, cinematography, lighting and other aesthetic elements as well as to the multiple aspects of performance that contribute to the musical’s milieu, we uncover both its utopian and its grittier sides. The course engages the musical’s rich critical literature about: early all-Black cast musicals; the history of classical Hollywood titles of the 1930s-1950s (Maurice Chevalier, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, etc); a range of genre appropriations and deconstructions by non-Hollywood and often non-American filmmakers (Julie Dash, Chantal Akerman, Jacques Demy, Lars von Trier); and weighs more recent musical titles within this history (eg. La La Land, A Star is Born). Coursework: short written responses; a presentation; a short final paper.

Dan Streible
Mondays-Fridays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room TBA
CINE-GT 2307 / Class # 5321
4 points

This course introduces advanced undergraduates and graduate students to the study of nonfiction film. It explores the history and historiography of nonfiction cinema, including – but deliberately not limited to – documentary. It touches upon the established milestones of the international tradition of documentary, from the romances of Robert Flaherty to propaganda projects of the 1930s and 1940s, through cinema verité of the 1960s and the activist, institutional, and personal styles of later decades. However, the course also contextualizes documentary amid forms of nonfiction typically segregated from it. Some are familiar theatrical forms, such as travelogues and newsreels. Others are nontheatrical categories: sponsored, industrial, educational, and science films; home movies and other amateur films; outtakes and other archival footage. Viewed both as discrete works of cinema and as artifacts of social and cultural significance, such often-orphaned films pose problems of history, culture, and aesthetics that challenge conceptions of making, viewing, and studying media. Readings combine primary sources and scholarly approaches. Students will participate actively in daily discussions, make in-class presentations, and complete short historical research projects. At least one assignment requires research into the hundreds of hours of historical newsreel footage made accessible online in 2023. Topics include the:  documentary “classics” with origins as sponsored films; intertwined careers of second-act filmmakers Emile de Antonio and Andy Warhol; short-lived NYU Educational Film Institute and its long-lived Film Library; contradictory legacy of the US Information Agency; multivalent impact of Rick Prelinger as collector/creator/archivist/scholar/curator and public intellectual; power of access to archives and their catalogs.

Feng-Mei Heberer
Mondays-Fridays, 6:00-10:00pm
Room TBA
CINE-GT 3243 / Class # 5314
4 points

This course explores questions of migrant authorship and storying through the work of Asian migrant auteurs – a deliberately open-ended label that includes artists, activists, and everyday media users that might not typically be understood as either “Asian,” “migrant,” or “auteur.” We will study the role of aesthetics, affect, race, gender, temporality, and intimacy in the stories that these makers tell, and the kinds of narrative and formal experimentation they engage and invent across different media formats. Case studies may include films from the Hong Kong New Wave, Turkish German cinema, and the works of US-based filmmakers Mira Nair, Isabel Sandoval, and Chloe Zhao as well as minor transnational moving image productions by the likes of Yang Yong-hi, Larissa Sansour, Miko Revereza, and the Taiwan International Workers’ Association.

Leticia Berrizbeitia Anez
Mondays & Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room TBA
CINE-UT 300 / Class # 5449
4 points

This course remaps Latin American cinema and media following the work contribution and experiences of self-identified women-makers. While learning about past and present influential women film and media makers from Latin America (including Sara Gómez, Margot Benacerraf, Claudia Llosa, and Lucrecia Martel) and their work, the students will become aware of relevant feminist theory and historiography questions. We will compare a wide range of films, as well as periods, places, and modes of production, to highlight common concerns across the region, such as the link between art and activism, raising awareness on reproductive health and rights, healing intergenerational violence, and alternative forms of belonging.

Ryan Banfi
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room TBA
CINE-UT 412 / Class # 5450
4 points

This course examines narratives in video games and how the video game medium relates to cinema and television. The course questions how video games can reshape the conventions of visual storytelling in film and related media. It aims to study video game narratives from historical, theoretical, cultural, queer, and industrial perspectives (among others) to interrogate the ideology that video games are an emerging medium that can tell immersive stories. In this course students will not only analyze video games by investigating how recent games have turned into blockbuster films (e.g., The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Universal Pictures 2023), theme parks (e.g., Super Nintendo World in Osaka, Japan and Super Nintendo World opening on Feb. 17th, 2023, at Universal Studios, Hollywood) and premium TV shows (e.g., The Last of Us (HBO, 2023)), but we will interact with the local community by visiting and studying arcades such as Wonderville (an independent arcade that offers artists a space to create unique games) in Brooklyn.

CINE-UT 900 / Class # 3309      1-4 points variable

A student wishing to conduct independent research for credit must obtain approval from a full-time faculty member in the Department of Cinema Studies who will supervise an independent study for up to 4 credits. This semester-long study is a project of special interest to the student who, with the supervising faculty member, agrees on a course of study and requirements. The proposed topic for an Independent Study project should not duplicate topics taught in departmental courses. This is an opportunity to develop or work on a thesis project.

To register, you must submit an Independent Study Form. Once the information from your form is verified by your faculty supervisor, you will receive a permission code.

CINE-UT 950 / Class # 3266      1-4 points variable

A student wishing to pursue an internship must obtain the internship and submit the Learning Contract before receiving a permission code. All internship grades will be pass/fail.