University of Pennsylvania Cinema Studies: Courses

CINE 101.401 - World Film History and Analysis to 1945
ENGL 091.401, ARTH 108.401
This course surveys the history of world film from cinema’s precursors to 1945. We will develop methods for analyzing film while examining the growth of film as an art, an industry, and a political instrument. The course begins with the emergence of film technology and early film audiences. We will then look at the rise of narrative film and the birth of Hollywood before turning to a number of national film industries that flourished after World War I, including French, Italian, Soviet, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian film. Along the way, we will look at different genres and topics including African-American independent film during the silent era, animation, ethnographic and documentary film, censorship, and the coming of sound. We conclude with the transformation of several film industries into propaganda tools during World War II (including the Nazi, Soviet, and US film industries). There are no prerequisites. Requirements include a short essay, a research project, a midterm, and a final. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes).
TR 10:30-12:00 | TBA
Peter Decherney

CINE 102.601 - World Film History and Analysis, 1945-present
ENGL 092.601, ARTH 109.601
Focusing on movies made after 1945, this course allows students to learn and to sharpen methods, terminologies, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film. Beginning with the cinematic revolution signaled by the Italian Neo-Realism (of Rossellini and De Sica), we will follow the evolution of postwar cinema through the French New Wave (of Godard, Resnais, and Varda), American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (including the New Hollywood cinema of Coppola and Scorsese), and the various other new wave movements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as the New German Cinema). We will then selectively examine some of the most important films of the last two decades, including those of U.S. independent film movement and movies from Iran, China, and elsewhere in an expanding global cinema culture. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and generic organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the Paramount Decision of 1948 to the digital convergences that are defining screen culture today. There are no perquisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, a final exam, and active participation. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes).
TR 5:30-7:00 | TBA
Rebecca Sheehan

CINE 016.401 - Contemporary British Literature & Film: Nation, Youth, Community
ENGL 016.401
This course surveys British film and literature from the late 1950s to the present moment, with a particular focus on works by and about young Britons. We will ask how these novels, poems, and films complicate ideas of nationalism and imagine alternate communities in school, within subcultures, and often through musical genres – rock-a-billy, rocksteady, dub, punk, glam rock, Bhangra, britpop. For historical background we will touch on the post-World War II Angry Young Men movement, 1960s working class subcultures, and the Carribean Artist’s Movement (CAM) of the 1970s. Films may include: Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar, Hanif Kureishi’s and Stephen Frears’s My Beautiful Laundrette, Gurinder Chadha’s I’m British But…, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, and Michael Winterbottom’s 24-Hour Party People. Readings may include: Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, B.S. Johnson’s Albert Angelo, Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Mi Revalueshanary Fren, Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album, Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, and Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.
TR 12:00-1:30 | TBA
Laura Heffernan

CINE 036.401 - The Middle East through Many Lenses
NELC 036.401
This seminar introduces the contemporary Middle East by drawing upon cutting-edge studies written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. These include history, political science, and anthropology, as well as studies of mass media, sexuality, religion, urban life, and the environment. We will spend the first few weeks of the semester surveying major trends in modern Middle Eastern history. We will spend subsequent weeks intensively discussing assigned readings along with documentary films that we watch in class. The semester will leave students with both a foundation in Middle Eastern studies and a sense of current directions in the field.
M 2:00-5:00 | TBA
Heather Sharkey

CINE 106.401 - Mythology and the Movies
ANTH 160.401
Myths are powerful symbolic stories that all humans use to interpret the worlds they live in. Traditional myths contain accounts of supernatural events and experiences and tell fantastic and imaginative stories of creations, hero quests, gods, monsters and natural disasters. These stories are enacted in important rituals and when told in social gatherings they are used to teach the most important concepts of a culture. The power of mythmaking is evident in the persistence of these traditional tales and the uses they have had through history. This course will examine the idea that today's blockbuster Hollywood movies carry out the same role that traditional myths did. Using theories from mythological and anthropological studies, the course analyzes popular movies and the use we make of them in our everyday lives. These contemporary myths will be examined using structural and motif analysis as well as interpretive strategies that consider mythic themes, symbols, concepts of kin and other, narrative, and relationships between myth and reality. The class also examines elements of fan culture as a form of mythic reenactment and the class members help design and participate in a public event staged at the Penn Museum that is based on mythology and the movies (in 2007 the event was Harry Potter and the Magical Muggle Museum).
TR 10:30-12:00 | TBA
Louise Krasniewicz

CINE 110.402 - Copyright and Culture
ENGL 105.402
In this course, we will look at the history of copyright law and explore the ways that copyright has both responded to new media and driven art and entertainment. How, for example, is a new medium (photography, film, the Internet, etc.) defined in relation to existing media? What constitutes originality in collage painting, hip hop music, or computer software? What are the limits of fair use? And how have artists, engineers and creative industries responded to various changes in copyright law? A major focus of the course will be the lessons of history for the current copyright debates over such issues as file sharing, the on-line video, and remix culture.
TR 1:30-3:00 | TBA
Peter Decherney

CINE 115.601 - Alfred Hitchcock
ENGL 292.601
This course focuses upon Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century, and will explore his films and authorship, from his early British works to his late Hollywood films. Spanning over half a century, Hitchcock’s films also participated in social and political history—bridging two world wars—and significantly contributed to the development of cinema, from silent film to sound, from black and white to color, from expressionism to classical Hollywood cinema; from the challenges of censorship and the introduction of the studio system to the concept of the director as auteur. With these formal and historical considerations, we will examine how Hitchcock realizes the artistic and commercial possibilities of film, attracting critical as well as popular audiences. We will also explore how Hitchcock engages with scholarly film critics, particularly in the development of formalist, psychoanalytic, and feminist film theory and criticism. Screenings are likely to include The Lodger, Blackmail, The Wrong Man, Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Marnie, Psycho, The Birds.
T 5:30-8:30 | TBA
Valerie Ross

CINE 118.401 - Iranian Cinema: Gender, Politics and Religion
NELC 118.401; COML 118
This seminar explores Iranian culture, art, history and politics through film in the contemporary era. We will examine a variety of works that represent the social, political, economic and cultural circumstances of post-revolutionary Iran. Along the way, we will discuss issues pertaining to gender, religion, nationalism, ethnicity, and the function of cinema in present day Iranian society. Films to be discussed will be by internationally acclaimed filmmakers, such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Tahmineh Milani, Jafar Panahi, Bahman Ghobadi, among others.
MW 2:00-3:30 | TBA
Pardis Minuchehr

CINE 146.401 - Afro-American Music in Film
MUSC 146.401
Description...
TR 3:00-4:30 | TBA
Guthrie Ramsey

CINE 200.401 - Philosophy in Film
PHIL 200.401
This course serves as an introduction to philosophy by using film as the primary genre. Throughout the course, we will watch a number of classic and contemporary films (supplemented by brief readings) in order to identify and discuss a number of themes central to philosophy. Films we will watch may include (among others): Antz, The Battle of Algiers, Blade Runner, Boyz N the Hood, Ghost in the Shell, I Confess, The Matrix, Memento, La Notte, Rashomon, The Seventh Seal, Twelve Angry Men, and Twelve Monkeys. Philosophical themes we will address may include (among others): the nature of the self and one’s identity through time; the nature and moral worth of persons; human freedom, fate and responsibility; the relationship between the mind and the body; the nature of knowledge and perception; the metaphysics of time and of time travel; what constitutes a just war and just behavior within war; adjudicating the conflict between one’s private obligations to oneself and one’s professional or public obligations; the political relationship between the individual and the community (including the state); and philosophical issues of feminism and of race. We may also spend some time discussing, from a philosophical perspective, the nature of film itself.
MW 10:00-11:00 | TBA
Karen Detlefsen

CINE 201.401 - Baaaaad Cinema: America and Film Censorship, 1896-Present
ENGL 291.401
This course is designed to provide an historical and textual perspective on the history of censorship in the cinema. We will assess a variety of concerns surrounding American film censorship. We will consider different types film censorship. We will also explore censorship across time, looking at the changes to the processes and systems of censorship by various crucial legal decisions. Finally, we will examine the impact of censorship on textual meaning, “textuality,” and viewer film-going experience. We will also attend to the various cultural conflicts that produced censorship. This course is designed to give students a better sense of how censorship operated in various historical moments and was driven by historically specific motivations. It will require a desire to learn history as well as a desire to read and understand film texts. We will address questions such as: Is complete censorship possible? Is censorship beneficial or productive? And how does the operation and technique of censorship differ based on what is being censored? Seeing censorship as a part of the broader cultural discourses with which it is enmeshed is a goal of our course. By the end of the course, students should have a clear sense of those organizations responsible for cutting films, what was cut from films, and how censorship, writ large, affected films' meanings.
T 3:00-6:00 | TBA
Ellen Scott

CINE 201.601 - Becoming Women: Social Mobility and the Hollywood Diva
A striking thematic unity emerges from Hollywood in the 1930’s in the films of that era’s legendary female stars. From Franklin to Fitzgerald and Faulkner American literature frets over the idea of social mobility. It’s a commonplace assertion that the self-made man is a defining feature of American literature. This course will explore the idea that Hollywood develops a parallel and complex genre of theself-made woman through its creation of the Hollywood diva as a particular kind of top-billed actress. We will sample the literature of social mobility from authors such as Crane, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner with special attention to the visual aesthetics of their work, and we will discover the impact of gender on the theme of social mobility as we study films featuring such stars as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Repeatedly the films of the Hollywood diva depict women forced to fend for themselves and make their way however they see fit—in a man’s world. Such characters often struggle against the historically limited career options of women, as well as class-based snobbery. We will consider why these stars seem to enjoy a special appeal, and whether their contribution to culture can be described as feminist or socially transformative.
W 5:30-8:30 | TBA
Todd Nothstein

CINE 202.401 - Contemporary International Film
ENGL 292.401; ARTH 290.401
This is a course in contemporary international film cultures and national cinemas. We will examine the idea of world cinema and set up a model of how it can be explored by studying contemporary film in various countries. We will explore ways in which cinemas from around the globe have attempted to come to terms with Hollywood, and look at forces which lead many filmmakers to define themselves in opposition to Hollywood norms. We will also consider an equally powerful tendency in such films to explore the language of cinema independent of Hollywood influences, and we will keep this in mind as we see films which are distinctive in their style and their creativity. Finally, we will engage with the questions of which films/cinemas get labeled as “world cinema,” what determines entry into the sphere of world cinema, and examine the importance of film festivals in creating world cinema.
TR 10:30-12:00 | TBA
Meta Mazaj

CINE 204.401 - Visual Communications
COMM 262 .401
Analysis of viewers' reactions to visual media (advertising, movies, TV, photography, etc.). Effects of: (1) production techniques (camera angles, editing, etc.); and (2) content of visual media (sex, violence, etc.).
TR 4:30-6:00 | TBA
Paul Messaris

CINE 209.401 - The Road Movie
ARTH 291.401
This course will allow us to study the changing shape of the road movie genre from Bonnie and Clyde (1967) to the French feminist revenge narrative, Baise-moi (Rape me), (2000). In addition to considering the possibilities and limits of genre as a category of analysis, we will grapple with a number of questions that will persist throughout the course: What is the relationship between cinema and the automobile? Is the road trip a particularly American fantasy, and if so, what does it mean when non-U.S. filmmakers adopt the road movie genre? Is the road movie a “masculine” genre? What role do urban and rural spaces play in the development of this genre? What happens to race/gender/sexuality/national identity in the road movie? What kinds of borders does this genre dream of crossing? Do the radical fantasies of characters within the road movie genre necessarily translate into films with radical politics?
TR 3:00-4:30 | TBA
Karen Beckman

CINE 224.401 - Chinese Cinema
EALC 225.401
This course is an introduction to Chinese cinema in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas, with emphasis on the way it represents or negotiates notions of China and Chineseness, as well as national and cultural identity. We will examine Chinese cinematic traditions in light of significant topics such as: the foundation of Chinese cinema and the rise of nationalism; film’s relationship to literary and popular cultural discourses; the pursuit of modernization; aesthetic responses to political and historical upheavals and transformations; the aesthetics of revolution, diaspora and transnationalism; visualized sexualities, violence, and youth subculture; collective desires to imagine and reinvent the cultural past; the politics of memory, mourning and amnesia, among others.
TR 3:00-4:30 | TBA
Xiaojue Wang

CINE 240.401 - Blood, Sweat and Pasta: Italian-Americans in Literature and Film
ITAL 288.401
American popular culture frequently serves up the public often unflattering representations of Italian-Americans to an audience often hungering for something more substantial. In this course we will explore various social conditions, aesthetic trends, and political motivations behind the proliferation of ruthless gangsters, lovable buffoons, and claustrophobic families comprising the pantheon of Italian-Americans images pervading our shared consciousness. To understand the rise of these popular stereotypes, and, perhaps, to dismantle them we will read novels by authors such as Cesare Pavese (The Moon and the Bonfire), Mario Puzo (The Fortunate Pilgrim), Pietro di Dinato (Christ in Concrete), Helen Barolini (Umbertina), Frank Lentricchia (The Edge of Night), and playwrights Tennessee Williams (The Rose Tattoo) Albert Innaurato (Gemini). We will also read critical essays and selections from authors such as Camille Paglia, Gay Talese, Fred Gardaphe, Mary Ann De Marco, and Don DeLillo. In addition to literary analysis, we will discuss representation of Italian-Americans in American cinema and television, and films such as The Godfather, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, Moonstruck, True Romance, My Cousin Vinny, and Marty, and episodes of television shows such as The Golden Girls, Cheers, The Sopranos, and Everyone Loves Raymond.
TR 3:00-4:30 | TBA
Frank Pellicone

CINE 245.401 - Masterpieces of French Cinema
FREN 230.401
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the history and scope of French cinema all the way to the present time through the analysis of key works of the French film canon. Particular attention will be paid to successive period styles (“poetic realism”, “French quality”, “the New Wave”, “le cinéma du look”, cinema de banlieue …) and a variety of critical lenses will be used (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, politics, aesthetics, gender…) in an effort to better understand the specificities and complexities of French cinematic culture.
T 3:00-7:00 | TBA
Staff

CINE 250.401 - Nazi Cinema
GRMN 257.401
This course explores the world of Nazi cinema ranging from infamous propaganda pieces such as "The Triumph of the Will" and "The Eternal Jew" to entertainments by important directors such as Pabst and Douglas Sirk. More than sixty years later, Nazi Cinema challenges us to grapple with issues of more subtle ideological insinuation than we might think. The course also includes film responses to developments in Germany by exiled German directors (Pabst, Wilder) and concludes with "Downfall," a recent German film depicting Hitler's last days in the bunker.
TR 10:30-12:00 | TBA
Simon Richter

CINE 272.401 - Asian Diaspora Film
ENGL 272.401; ASAM 202.401
This course explores cinema by or about peoples in the Asian diaspora. We will examine documentary, experimental, and commercial films, with a specific focus on (queer) sexuality in multiple locations including the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. Throughout the semester, we will develop a theory of diaspora historically and critically attuned to its evolution in Asian studies (East Asian and South Asia) as well as Asian American studies. In this regard, we will we pay particular attention to the relationship between political-economy (revolution, exile, migration, immigration, refuge, settlement, labor, colonialism, transnationalism, and globalization) and cultural identity (sexuality, race, class, family, and kinship). Some of the directors we will be studying include Vivek Bald, Deann Borshay-Liem, Stephen Frears, Richard Fung, Jia Zhangke, Clara Law, Ang Lee, Michael Magnaye, Deepa Mehta, Rea Tajiri, Wong Kar-wai, Alice Wu, and Edward Yang.
TR 3:00-4:30 | TBA
David Eng

CINE 280.401 - From Silent Shakespeare to Postmodern Austen
ENGL 286.401
Since early silent adaptations of The Tempest and King Lear to the Coen brother’s 2007 recreation of Cormac McCarthey’s No Country for Old Men, the movies have maintained a complex and changing relationship with literature. Often dogged by notions of textual fidelity and priority, frequently a product of economic and industrial pressures, and continually debated and theorized by scholars, writers, and filmmakers, the exchanges between the two practices open up a vast terrain of questions and problems, many of which will be explored in this course. We will approach the topic historically, textually, and theoretically. We will survey and carefully analyze a cultural and historical range of adaptations: beginning with the many silent Shakespeares at the turn of the last century, we will move through the classical period of the 1930s and the postwar experiments with more radical kinds of cinematic adaptations (such Kurosawa’s version of MacBeth, Throne of Blood), and into the present with its sometimes ironic (Clueless) and sometimes spectacular (Age of Innocence) transformations of literature on screen. Through readings from Vachel Lindsay (1915) to Linda Hutcheon (2006), we will address a variety of issues--about, for instance, authorship versus auteurism, popular culture versus high culture, and literary reading versus cinematic viewing. Requirements will include: weekly screenings, class participation, critical readings, an analytical essay, a research paper, and a final examination.
TR 1:30-3:00 | TBA
Timothy Corrigan

CINE 280.402 - Americans in Paris
ENGL 286.402
American literature from the perspective of its everlasting captivation with the city of Paris. Ranging from the 18th century to the present, we’ll concentrate on major American writers, such as Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Henry Miller, James Baldwin, Janet Flanner, Elizabeth Bishop, and Edmund White, as well as important artists, filmmakers, and musicians, such as John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Man Ray; Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Donen, Robert Altman, Wim Wenders; Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Josephine Baker, Cole Porter, and Miles Davis. We’ll also take note of the everlasting French captivation with America, from Crèvecoeur and Tocqueville to Simone de Beauvoir and MC Solaar. Classes will be organized around important themes and problems, such as: “What Is an American?”; “Sex Tourism and the Founding Fathers”; “Revolution and Terror”; “Pleasure and Alienation”; “Many Modernisms”; “Les Années Folles and All that Jazz”; “Harlem and Paris”; “The Post-Colonial”; “68, or Something”; and “Freedom Fries.” The course will also offer an explicitly transnational perspective on the concept of national literatures. Requirements include several very short essays, an in-class presentation, and a longer final essay. No knowledge of French is required, though bilingual projects are welcome.
MW 2:00-3:30 | TBA
Max Cavitch

CINE 281.401 - Race Films: Spike Lee and his Interlocutors
ENGL 281.401; AFRC 281.401
This course requires students to think critically about historical and contemporary cinematic representations of race, class, gender, sexuality, and the urban landscape. The class will examine various Spike Lee films for their aestheticization of broader social and cultural phenomena as well as their engagement with larger theoretical and political concerns. Students with a background in literary theory, visual studies, anthropology, film, Africana studies and communication are especially encouraged to enroll.
TR 1:30-3:00 | TBA
Salamishah Tillet and John L. Jackson, Jr.

CINE 287.601 - Introduction to Mexican Film (COURSE TAUGHT IN ENGLISH)
SPAN 287.601
An introduction and overview of Mexican cinema from the first Lumière screening in Mexico City (1896) to the recent wave of creative filmmakers such a Alfonso Cuarón, Carlos Raygades, and Guillermo del Toro. Topics include: the role of film in the Mexican revolution; popular genres during the Mexican Golden Ages of cinema (1930-1950); Luis Buñuel’s contribution to Mexican Cinema; the New Mexican Cinema movement that rose up following the massacre at Tlatelolco; Mexican B cinema, including El Santo and horror cinema; Border Cinema and Narcocinema”; the innovating developments during the 1990’s; and recent trends in Mexican Cinema including the revival of short films and electronically disseminated visual media. Screenings of major films include: La mujer del puerto (Arcady Boytler 1934), Vámanos con Pancho Villa (Fernando de Fuentes 1936), Allí está el detalle (Juan Bustillo Oro 1940), Cuando los Hijos se Van (Juan Bustillo Oro 1941), Río Escondido (Emilio Fernández 1948), Aventurera (Alberto Gout 1950), Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel 1950), El (Luis Buñuel 1953), Canoa (Felipe Cazals 1976), Un lugar sin límites (Arturo Ripstein 1978), Rojo amanecer (Jorge Fons 1989), Novia que te vea (Guita Schyfter 1994), La ley de Herodes (Luis Estrada 1999), Temporada de patos (Fernando Eimbcke 2004), Batalla en el cielo (Carlos Reygadas 2005), and Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón 2006).
Important: The course is open to students with no prior language skills as a Cinema Studies course: CINE 287 601. All class lectures, discussions, and required work, readings, and screenings will be in English or presented with English subtitles and translations.
Students who desire Spanish credit for the course may register for SPAN 287. These students will complete all their written assignments in Spanish and prepare a final oral exam in Spanish in addition to participating in the regular lectures and class discussion.
T 5:30-8:30 | TBA
Michael Solomon

CINE 329.401 - The Image of Childhood in Israeli Film and Literature
NELC 159.401
This course examines cinematic and literary portrayals of childhood. It will take advantage of the recent boom in Israeli filmmaking. While Israeli works constitute more then half of the course's material, European film and fiction play important comparative roles. Many of the works are placed, and therefore discussed, against a backdrop of national, collective, or historical conflicts. Nonetheless, private traumas (such as madness, abuse, or loss) or an adult’s longing for an idealized time are often the central foci of the stories. These personal issues and the nature of individual memory will be discussed from a psychological point of view. The course analyzes how the media of film, poetry and prose use their respective languages in their effort to reconstruct the image of childhood, retrieve fragments of past events and penetrate the psyche of a child. There will be six film screenings; the films will also be placed on reserve at the library for those students unable to attend the screenings. The content of this course changes from year to year, and therefore, students may take it for credit more than once.
TR 1:30-3:00 | TBA
Nili Gold

CINE 365.601 - Chekhov on Stage and Screen
RUSS 426.601
“What’s so funny, Mr. Chekhov?” This question is often heard from critics and directors who still are puzzled with the definition of Chekhov’s four major plays as comedies. Traditionally, all of them are staged and directed mostly as dramas, melodramas, or even tragedies. The course is intended to provide the participants with a concept of dramatic genre that will assist them in approaching Chekhov’s plays as comedies. In addition to reading Chekhov’s works, Russian and western productions and film adaptations of Chekhov’s works will be screened. Among them, Vanya on 42nd Street (Andre Gregory), and Four Funny Families (Vera Zubarev).
T 5:30-8:30 | TBA
Vera Zubarev

CINE 370.401 - Blacks in Americam Film and Television
AFRC 400.401
An examination and analysis of the changing images and achievements of African Americans in motion pictures and television. The first half of the course focuses on African-American film images from the early years of D.W. Griffith's "renegade bucks" in The Birth of a Nation (1915); to the comic servants played by Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, and others during the Depression era; to the post-World War II New Negro heroes and heroines of Pinky (1949) and The Defiant Ones (1958); to the rise of the new movement of African American directors such as Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Charles Burnett, (To Sleep With Anger) and John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood). The second half explores television images from the early sitcoms "Amos 'n Andy" and "Beulah" to the "Cosby Show," "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," and "Martin." Foremost this course will examine Black stereotypes in American films and television--and the manner in which those stereotypes have reflected national attitudes and outlooks during various historical periods. This course will also explore the unique "personal statements" and the sometimes controversial "star personas" of such screen artists as Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Richard Pryor, Oscar Micheaux, Spike Lee, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, and Whoopi Goldberg. The in-class screenings and discussions will include such films as Show Boat (1936), the independently produced "race movies" of the 1930s and 1940s, Cabin in the Sky (1943), The Defiant Ones (1958), Imitation of Life (the 1959 remake), Super Fly (1972), and She's Gotta Have It (1986) and such television series as "I Spy," "Julia," "Good Times," "The Jeffersons," "Roots," "A Different World," "I'll Fly Away," "LA Law," and "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper."
M 5:00 - 8:00 | TBA
D. Boogle

CINE 378.301 - Going Digital
STSC 378.301
A “digital revolution” in the twentieth century is said to have ushered in an era of new media and rapid globalization, with changes in manufacture, communication, and subjectivity. How are changes at the level of signals related to changes in politics and culture? This course surveys characterizations of “the analog” and “the digital” in the literatures of engineering, history of technology, and media studies. We will examine archival and published sources, as well as artifacts, to compare the analog and digital forms of several technologies, including film, the telephone, sound recording and computing.
R 3:00 - 6:00 | TBA
Mara Mills

CINE 392.402 - Remembering through Film: Cinema and Popular Memory
ENGL 292.402
This course examines the relationship between cinema, history, and popular memory. It explores a diverse range of films which claim to show that film can express and also shape popular memory, and pays special attention to the manner in which films write and rewrite history by articulating and shaping such memory. The course will be based on a premise that cinema shapes or negotiates the vision of who we are as individuals, groups and larger collectivities. As a truly popular and global phenomenon, it is cinema that produces both the normative or institutional versions of history, as well as popular resistances to the power of that history. Because these issues are most prevalent in a genre called “historical films,” we will view and analyze several examples of this genre to try to answer the following questions: What is a historical film? What is its relationship to history and historical narratives? What is its role in producing or reshaping our memory of historical events? By extensive analysis of diverse films, both fiction and documentaries, we will thus raise significant questions about the construction of memory and history.
TR 1:30-3:00 | TBA
Meta Mazaj

CINE 062.401 - Film Video II
Cross-listed: FNAR 062.401
Film/Video II is a hands-on course in super 8mm and/or digital video moviemaking in which each student plans and creates three short productions. Techniques learned in FNAR 061 will be refined while exploring the role of sound and aesthetics in the filmmaking/video process. Auditors not permitted.
W 5:00-8:00 | ADDM 207
Ellen Reynolds

CINE 063.401 - Documentary Video
Cross-listed: FNAR 063.401
A digital video course stressing concept development and the exploration of contemporary aesthetics of the digital realm, specifically in relation to the documentary form. Building on camera, sound and editing skills acquired in Film/Video I and II, students will produce a portfolio of short videos and one longer project over the course of the semester. Set assignments continue to investigate the formal qualities of image-making, the grammar of the moving image and advanced sound production issues within the documentary context.
M 5:00-8:00 | ADDM 207
A. Heriza

CINE 065.401 - Cinema Production
Cross-listed: FNAR 065.401
This course focuses on the practice and theory of producing narrative based cinema. Members of the course will become the film crew and produce a short digital film. Workshops on producing, directing, lighting, camera, sound and editing will build skills necessary for the hands-on production shoots. Visiting lecturers will critically discuss the individual roles of production in the context of the history of film.
W 2:00-5:00 | VANP FLMCR
Emory Van Cleve

CINE 116.401/601 - Screenwriting
ENGL 116.401/601
This is a workshop-style course for those who have thought they had a terrific idea for a movie but didn't know where to begin. The class will focus on learning the basic tenets of classical dramatic structure and how this (ideally) will serve as the backbone for the screenplay of the aforementioned terrific idea. Each student should, by the end of the semester, have at least thirty pages of a screenplay completed. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class, and students will also become acquainted with how the business of selling and producing one's screenplay actually happens. Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course to <kathydemarco@writing.upenn.edu>.
401 | T 1:30-4:30 | TBA | Kathleen DeMarco
601 | M 5:00-8:00 | TBA | Marc Lapadula

CINE 130.401/401 - Advanced Screenwriting
ENGL 130.401/402
This is a workshop-style course for students who have completed a screenwriting class, or have a draft of a screenplay they wish to improve. Classes will consist of discussing student's work, as well as discussing relevant themes of the movie business and examining classic films and why they work as well as they do. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class in addition to some potentially useful texts like /What Makes Sammy Run?/ Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email. Please send a writing sample (in screenplay form), a brief description of your interest in the course and your goals for your screenplay, and any relevant background or experience. Applications should be sent to <kathydemarco@writing.upenn.edu>.
401 | M 2:00-5:00 | TBA | Kathleen DeMarco
402 | F 5:00-8:00 | TBA | A. Wolk

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