The courses listed below are provided by Student Information Services (SIS). This listing provides a snapshot of immediately available courses within this department and may not be complete. Course registration information can be found at https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/.
Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information, including courses that are offered on a rotating basis.
Column one has the course number and section. Other columns show the course title, days offered, instructor's name, room number, if the course is cross-referenced with another program, and a option to view additional course information in a pop-up window.
Course # (Section)
Title
Day/Times
Instructor
Room
PosTag(s)
Info
AS.061.141 (01)
Introduction to Cinema, 1941-present
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 2:30PM Screenings, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Ward, Meredith C
Introduction to Cinema, 1941-present AS.061.141 (01)
Introduction to Cinema provides an overview of American and international cinema from the
post World War II era to the present. Through lectures and discussion, weekly screenings, and
intensive visual analysis of individual films, we will explore the aesthetic, cultural, political, and
economic forces that have shaped the art and industry of film over the past 80 years. Regular
quizzes, writing assignments, class participation required. Mandatory film screenings. Lab Fee $60.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 2:30PM Screenings, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Ward, Meredith C
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/46
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.061.213 (01)
Screening Difference: Race in American Film
W 1:30PM - 4:00PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Bucknell, Lucy
FILM-CRITST
Screening Difference: Race in American Film AS.061.213 (01)
This course will explore how race and ethnicity have been represented in popular American film from the early 20th century to the present. Weekly screenings, regular quizzes, and open discussion will emphasize close observation and critical thinking. Requirements include an oral presentation and a written analysis. No prior experience in film studies required; majors and non-majors welcome.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Bucknell, Lucy
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/15
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.221 (01)
Special Topics: Producing the Independent Film
W 4:00PM - 6:20PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM
Porterfield, Matthew
Special Topics: Producing the Independent Film AS.061.221 (01)
This class will guide students through the process of producing an independent film in the United States. The chronology of lectures and coursework will follow the lifeline of a project, from conception through financing and development, production, postproduction, marketing, and exhibition. Students will learn how to package and pitch projects, budget and schedule a screenplay, develop a financing plan, supervise production and post-production, and mount a viable festival and distribution strategy.
Lab Fee: $50
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:20PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM
Instructor: Porterfield, Matthew
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 6/12
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.061.237 (01)
Portrait Films
M 3:30PM - 6:00PM, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Yasinsky, Karen
FILM-CRITST
Portrait Films AS.061.237 (01)
Portraiture has a long history in the arts, in painting, sculpture and photography. The film portrait is closer to these plastic arts, rather than traditional documentary, in that it approaches it’s subject mostly though looking and finding new forms. Screenings will include the work of Andy Warhol, Philippe Garrel, Shirley Clarke, varied screen tests, some animation and more. Coursework will include a presentation, short papers and a film portrait.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 3:30PM - 6:00PM, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Yasinsky, Karen
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/8
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.268 (01)
History of Computer Animation
T 10:00AM - 12:00PM, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM
Stine, Kyle J.
FILM-CRITST
History of Computer Animation AS.061.268 (01)
This course offers a journey through the history of computer animation. We’ll start with an archaeology of the digital image, look at experimental animations by early computer artists, and sketch out the work of engineers in developing techniques of wire-frame modeling, texture mapping, shadowing, and facial animation. Beginning with short films and digital sequences in otherwise live-action movies, we’ll cover a wide variety of animation styles in an international context. Screenings will be drawn from a selection of fully computer-animated features, such as those from Studio Ghibli and Pixar; live-action movies with digital special effects in the mode of Tron (Lisberger, USA, 1982) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron, USA, 1992); films that use computer software to aid traditional methods of animating, such as The Illusionist (Chomet, France, 2010) and Boy and the World (Abreu, Brazil, 2014); and animated documentaries, such as Waltz with Bashir (Folman, Israel, 2008) and Tower (Maitland, USA, 2016).
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 10:00AM - 12:00PM, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM
Instructor: Stine, Kyle J.
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 1/13
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.303 (01)
Podcasting: Critical and Creative Practice
M 10:00AM - 12:20PM
Stine, Kyle J.
FILM-CRITST
Podcasting: Critical and Creative Practice AS.061.303 (01)
In this critical studies course with a creative component, students will learn about the history and cultural significance of podcasting, develop tools for critically listening to and analyzing podcasts, and learn how to research, write for, and produce podcasts. Examples will come from a broad sample of narrative, documentary, interview, and discussion-based podcasts. While no formal training in audio production is necessary to take the course, students will be expected to learn the necessary skills to create their own podcasts. In-class demonstrations of microphones, editing software, and approaches to sound design will be offered, and students are encouraged to take advantage of office hours for further help with audio production.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 10:00AM - 12:20PM
Instructor: Stine, Kyle J.
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/13
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.335 (01)
Monster Films
M 3:00PM - 5:20PM, S 7:00PM - 9:30PM Screenings, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Bucknell, Lucy
FILM-CRITST
Monster Films AS.061.335 (01)
Monstrous others and monstrous selves in classic 20th century horror. One core course or permission required.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:20PM, S 7:00PM - 9:30PM Screenings, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Bucknell, Lucy
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/15
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.361 (01)
Documentary Film Theory
F 11:00AM - 1:20PM
Mann, John
FILM-CRITST
Documentary Film Theory AS.061.361 (01)
Documentary Theory: The Work of Documentary in the Age of Reality Reproduction This course explores contemporary documentary film and video with an emphasis on selected directors and the theoretical implications suggested by their work. In particular, we look at the notion of the ‘real’ as it is constructed and maintained through and by documentaries. This inquiry necessarily involves a reflection that is philosophically as well as politically motivated. Directors include Errol Morris, Trinh Minh-ha, Ross McElwee, and Werner Herzog. Readings are eclectic, ranging from Annie Dillard to Martin Heidegger. Counts toward 300 or 400-level critical studies requirement.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 11:00AM - 1:20PM
Instructor: Mann, John
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/10
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.365 (01)
The New Hollywood:American Films of the Seventies
Th 4:00PM - 6:20PM, T 7:00PM - 10:00PM Screenings
DeLibero, Linda
FILM-CRITST
The New Hollywood:American Films of the Seventies AS.061.365 (01)
This course will explore the extraordinary renaissance in American film that arose from the death of the studio system and ended with the advent of the blockbuster. We'll discuss how the political and cultural struggles over the Vietnam war, civil rights, and the feminist movement affected American filmmaking between roughly 1967 and 1980, heralded by a new generation of filmmakers working both within and outside of the system. Emphasis will be on both close formal analysis and historical contexts. Filmmakers to be discussed will include Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Charles Burnett, Ivan Dixon, Francis Ford Coppola, Barbara Loden, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Alan Pakula, Arthur Penn, Bob Rafelson, Martin Scorsese, Melvin Van Peebles, and Claudia Weill. This is a discussion-based class, and regular participation is required.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:20PM, T 7:00PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: DeLibero, Linda
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/12
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.375 (01)
Surrealism and Film
W 3:30PM - 5:50PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Yasinsky, Karen
FILM-CRITST
Surrealism and Film AS.061.375 (01)
We will define Surrealism through primary texts, including those of Andre Breton, Antonin Artaud
and Rene Daumal and other works that defined and influenced the movement in the early part of
the 20th century. Using an understanding of the practice of surrealism found in the readings, as
well as in surrealist games and automatic writing, we'll study a diverse group of filmmakers
influenced by the practice, including Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell, Raul Ruiz and contemporary artists such as David Lynch. Assignments include weekly papers and one final creative project. Weekly film screenings Thursday 7:30-10:00 PM. $50 lab fee.
Media, Online
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 3:30PM - 5:50PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Yasinsky, Karen
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/12
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.211.316 (01)
Brazilian Cinema and Topics in Contemporary Brazilian Society
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
De Azeredo Cerqueira, Flavia Christina
GRLL-ENGL, INST-NWHIST, INST-GLOBAL
Brazilian Cinema and Topics in Contemporary Brazilian Society AS.211.316 (01)
Course is taught in ENGLISH - This course is an introduction to the academic study of cinema as a communicative art and to Brazilian film. The films selected focuses on films from the late 1950s to the present and highlight import episodes and challenges in the advancement of the Brazilian society as well as its cinematic production with a special view to the film aesthetics through analysis from a number of critical perspectives, including class, race, gender as well as ethnicity, nationalism or national identity, colonialism, social changes, and the politics of representation. In this sense, the films and documentaries that we will be watching and studying encompass the period from the rise of New Cinema (Cinema Novo) up to films exploring the most recent trends, including movies launched up to 2019. Students wishing to do the course work in English, for 3 credits should register for section 01. Those wishing to earn 4 credits by doing the course work in Portuguese should register for section 02. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: De Azeredo Cerqueira, Flavia Christina
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/18
PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, INST-NWHIST, INST-GLOBAL
AS.211.316 (02)
Brazilian Cinema and Topics in Contemporary Brazilian Society
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
De Azeredo Cerqueira, Flavia Christina
GRLL-ENGL, INST-NWHIST, INST-GLOBAL
Brazilian Cinema and Topics in Contemporary Brazilian Society AS.211.316 (02)
Course is taught in ENGLISH - This course is an introduction to the academic study of cinema as a communicative art and to Brazilian film. The films selected focuses on films from the late 1950s to the present and highlight import episodes and challenges in the advancement of the Brazilian society as well as its cinematic production with a special view to the film aesthetics through analysis from a number of critical perspectives, including class, race, gender as well as ethnicity, nationalism or national identity, colonialism, social changes, and the politics of representation. In this sense, the films and documentaries that we will be watching and studying encompass the period from the rise of New Cinema (Cinema Novo) up to films exploring the most recent trends, including movies launched up to 2016. Students wishing to do the course work in English, for 3 credits should register for section 01. Those wishing to earn 4 credits by doing the course work in Portuguese should register for section 02. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis.
Credits: 4.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: De Azeredo Cerqueira, Flavia Christina
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/2
PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, INST-NWHIST, INST-GLOBAL
AS.211.386 (01)
Italian Cinema
MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Di Bianco, Laura
GRLL-ITAL, GRLL-ENGL, INST-GLOBAL
Italian Cinema AS.211.386 (01)
Italian Cinema: The Classics, The Forgotten, The Emergent. This course traces the history of Italian cinema from the silent era to the contemporary period, highlighting its main trends and genres, and reflecting on the major transformations modern and contemporary Italian society experienced over the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. We shall discuss iconic films such as Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, (the classics) that received international recognition and had a global impact on film history, and also rare archival films by pioneer women filmmakers from the silent era (the forgotten). Finally, we’ll discuss films released in the last decade (the emergent) that address issues such as migration and the ecological crisis. (Zoom Q&As with filmmakers will be part of curriculum). While this class takes an historical approach, it also includes a theoretical component and introduces students to the specificity of the cinematic language, examining films in relation to frame composition, camera movements, editing, and sound. This is an intensive writing class taught in English.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Instructor: Di Bianco, Laura
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/15
PosTag(s): GRLL-ITAL, GRLL-ENGL, INST-GLOBAL
AS.215.418 (01)
Impure Images: Latin American Film and Poetry at the End of the 20th Century
MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Galindo Orrego, Liliana
GRLL-SPAN
Impure Images: Latin American Film and Poetry at the End of the 20th Century AS.215.418 (01)
This course will study ideas and images of and from Latin America that appear in poetic and cinematographic productions from 1968 to 2001. It explores connections between aesthetics and politics in Latin American film and poetry after 1968. We will address questions such as: How do images from poetry and film embody and represent tensions between the rural and the urban, the private and the public, the national and the international spheres? How do multimedia productions destabilize the purity of genres and call attention to the form? We will also look at some recent productions, in order to see continuities and transformations in form and content, and in the role that cinema and poetry play in Latin American societies.
Taught in Spanish
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Instructor: Galindo Orrego, Liliana
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/18
PosTag(s): GRLL-SPAN
AS.300.340 (01)
Literature and Film of Unintended Consequences
TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
Siraganian, Lisa Michele
Literature and Film of Unintended Consequences AS.300.340 (01)
Sometimes brilliant ideas and plans don’t work as anticipated, or go very badly—for example, empowering the “invisible hand” of the market, building a huge hydroelectric dam, or plotting a double murder by two strangers. This course explores these and other fascinating literary instances of unintended consequences—the unanticipated results of actions that people planned ending up a very different way. Reading or watching mainly twentieth-century American literature and movies, as well as some essays and poetry, we will follow a range of different creators as they think about unplanned effects and why they matter. What can these works tell us about how we intend, act, or make meaning at the limits of our control? Texts will include films by Charlie Chaplin, Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock, poetry or fiction by Wallace Stevens, Patricia Highsmith, and Zadie Smith.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa Michele
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.365.103 (02)
Science & Film
F 12:00PM - 1:15PM, W 6:30PM - 8:30PM Screenings
DeLibero, Linda, Porter, Annette
Science & Film AS.365.103 (02)
From the origins of cinema to the present, science—particularly science fiction—has remained the most reliably popular way for filmmakers to address contemporary ethical, philosophical and social issues. And for better or worse, film’s ability to envision the limits and possibilities of scientific exploration makes it a primary source of scientific information for lay people. In this course, we’ll study the enduring connection between science and film through weekly screenings, lectures and discussions. Experts in science, medicine, technology, and public health, along with ethicists, philosophers, and film scholars will explore a range of questions: How does film both reflect and shape our understanding of scientific concepts and technologies, from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering? How does science fiction reveal contemporary cultural anxieties and address ethical dilemmas such as weighing the common good against the rights of the individual? How “fictional” is the science in science fiction film? What can we learn about “real” science from the movies? In addition to exploring science through film, students will learn about the background and history of the movies they see and will engage in formal film analysis in order to better understand how film makes meaning. This course is 2 credits with the option for a third credit should you elect to join a film production project about science and film at Hopkins.
Credits: 2.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 12:00PM - 1:15PM, W 6:30PM - 8:30PM Screenings
Instructor: DeLibero, Linda, Porter, Annette
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.371.303 (01)
Documentary Photography
M 1:30PM - 4:30PM
Mckone, Jonna
Documentary Photography AS.371.303 (01)
In this course, we will explore different genres and approaches to documentary photography and the questions inherent to this mode of image-making like representation, storytelling, records and archives, journalism, community engagement, research and personal perspective. Baltimore neighborhoods and contemporary issues will provide inspiration for student work. Students will learn camera operation, photo editing and produce a final documentary project on a subject of their choice as the culmination of their semester’s work. Digital SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance at first class is mandatory.
