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.001.122 (01)
FYS: Global Cinema in the 21st Century
MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Mason, Laura
Gilman 134
FYS: Global Cinema in the 21st Century AS.001.122 (01)
This First-Year Seminar introduces students to the intellectual life of the university by considering some of the riches of contemporary global cinema. After a brief introduction each week, you will watch the assigned film and read some texts to deepen your sense of how to analyze it and think about broader matters the director has taken on. During in-class discussion, we will consider what makes a particular film noteworthy, what the director seems to think about his/her national context, and how local issues intersect with broader questions about the human condition. How does the past shape us? What is justice? What is political action? Who are we responsible to? We will also consider aesthetics. What is a good director? How do we know we are watching good acting (especially when reading subtitles?) What impact do cinematography and editing have on our perception of a film? How do film makers speak to and quote one another?
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Mason, Laura
Room: Gilman 134
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/12
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.001.128 (01)
FYS: Deep Listening and Multimedia Sound Art
F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Ward, Meredith C
Gilman 134
FYS: Deep Listening and Multimedia Sound Art AS.001.128 (01)
Sound plays a rich and complex role in our everyday lives and in our various forms of media art. In the past thirty years, sound studies has become a new addition to the study of the human senses, as well as the relationship of these senses to history, aesthetics, epistemology, culture, and art. How do we listen to the world around us? To different media? In this First-Year Seminar, we explore listening to the lived environment, to music, and to multimedia sound art ranging from performance art to cinema. The nexus of questions surrounding listening opens us up to a host of new texts and approaches: those of acoustic ecology, or how we experience sound via the lived and natural environment; those of the relationship between the senses and our emotions; those of the nature of musical listening; and those of the art world as it engages with sound. This seminar is a mixture of sound theory and practice. We will read, debate, and bring in examples. Students will create their own projects, both written and sonic. No prior experience in sound theory or sound practice are required.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Ward, Meredith C
Room: Gilman 134
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/12
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.061.140 (01)
Introduction to Cinema, 1892-1960
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
DeLibero, Linda
Gilman 55
Introduction to Cinema, 1892-1960 AS.061.140 (01)
This course explores the fundamentals of film analysis and encourages students to embark on an exploration of the first half of our first century of movies. It teaches the basic elements of film form, as well as their use in films across the globe from the turn of the twentieth century through the start of World War II. Movements discussed include the silent comedy of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, moody German Expressionism, the playful anarchy of Surrealism, the fundamentals of editing with Soviet Montage, the beauty of French poetic realism, the rule-breaking of Pre-Production Code cinema, the work of the young Alfred Hitchcock, and, of course, highlights of classical Hollywood filmmaking.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: DeLibero, Linda
Room: Gilman 55
Status: Reserved Open
Seats Available: 20/40
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.061.145 (01)
Introduction to Digital Video Production: Visual Language
W 3:30PM - 6:00PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Yasinsky, Karen
FILM-PROD
Introduction to Digital Video Production: Visual Language AS.061.145 (01)
This course is a study of the visual language used to create a moving picture. Through screenings and discussion of films, videos, and related readings, students will develop a visual critical facility and will demonstrate this facility in a few response papers to screenings and video projects. The course will focus on image construction, including composition, framing, movement inside the frame and use of light as well as use of sound. Students will learn to be attentive to rhythm and tempo in picture editing and sound. In-class video assignments included, in which students will work in small groups of three.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 3:30PM - 6:00PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Lights, Camera, Action: In the City AS.061.159 (01)
This mini-course will provide a survey of American and international films to which city as setting is integral. In-class screenings and emphasis on discussion over lecture. Four short written responses. No prior experience in film studies required. Due to the limited number of meetings, perfect attendance is required.
Special Topics: Writing About Film AS.061.226 (01)
This workshop promotes more effective writing, hones interpretive skills, and encourages the development of a distinctive voice through a series of progressively more complex assignments. By sharing draft essays with the class, commenting on one another’s work, and revising, students will learn to edit their own work and to thoughtfully critique others’. Fulfills the Film and Media Studies expository writing requirement. Lab Fee: $50
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM, T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Mason, Laura
Room: Greenhouse 113
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/12
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.267 (01)
Cultural History of the Internet
M 2:00PM - 4:30PM
Stine, Kyle J.
The Centre 208
FILM-CRITST, MSCH-HUM
Cultural History of the Internet AS.061.267 (01)
This course offers an introduction to internet studies through the many ways digital culture has touched our everyday lives: memes, blogs, gaming, social networking, instant messaging, and more. From its origins in connecting scientific researchers to its present form as a multi-device, multi-platform web connecting us to everything from each other to our smart homes, the internet has proven that nearly our entire social world can be processed as data and linked up. While this has meant greater connection, it has also raised questions about how we learn, communicate, behave, and organize. The internet has long promised new avenues of personal expression, but it has also brought with it the quandaries of echo chambers, information silos, and disinformation campaigns. In response to these complicating effects, the course offers an opportunity for students to develop the critical mapping tools necessary to orient oneself within this vast cultural network and its rapid historical unfolding.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 2:00PM - 4:30PM
Instructor: Stine, Kyle J.
Room: The Centre 208
Status: Open
Seats Available: 9/30
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST, MSCH-HUM
AS.061.270 (01)
The Body and Cinema
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Stine, Kyle J.
Gilman 313
FILM-CRITST, MSCH-HUM
The Body and Cinema AS.061.270 (01)
Before film even emerged as a popular entertainment form, motion pictures were used to study the human body for purposes of scientific inquiry and medical practice. The present-day crossovers between imaging science and cinema—the inclusion of medical imaging in movies and television shows, the deployment of informational videos and animations in telehealth, and the myriad ways that digital imaging itself is spurred on by the needs of scientific investigation and the demand for cultural works—suggest that what we know about the human body is caught up in a complex web of technical representations and cultural meanings. This course explores the construction of the human body within this array of cinematic practice. Our approach will be twofold: First, we will consider scientific and medical images not merely as powerful means of seeing what would otherwise be unseeable but also as technically enabled and culturally influenced ways of knowing, that is, images, as in cinema, that are historical and could be otherwise. Second, we will examine representations of the human body in the history of film, focusing on how bodies are represented, what bodies are privileged, and how bodies are figured using medical imaging.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Stine, Kyle J.
Room: Gilman 313
Status: Open
Seats Available: 1/15
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST, MSCH-HUM
AS.061.313 (01)
Personal Storytelling for the Screen
T 3:00PM - 5:30PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Bucknell, Lucy
Greenhouse 113
FILM-SCRWRT
Personal Storytelling for the Screen AS.061.313 (01)
A workshop devoted to creating compelling short scripts based on personal experience. Analysis of screened films and collaborative development of student work will emphasize how unique worlds and world views can reflect a larger shared humanity. Short critical and creative written exercises, and a longer, creative final project.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Bucknell, Lucy
Room: Greenhouse 113
Status: Open
Seats Available: 1/9
PosTag(s): FILM-SCRWRT
AS.061.339 (01)
A Cinema Of Anxiety: Film Noir
M 3:00PM - 5:30PM, S 7:00PM - 9:30PM Screenings, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Bucknell, Lucy
Hodson 216
FILM-CRITST
A Cinema Of Anxiety: Film Noir AS.061.339 (01)
Shadows, dead ends, and dangerous women in the postwar films of Sam Fuller, John Huston, Fritz Lang, Anthony Mann, Jacques Tourneur, and others.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:30PM, S 7:00PM - 9:30PM Screenings, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Bucknell, Lucy
Room: Hodson 216
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/15
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.380 (01)
French Cinema of Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Difference
Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Roos, Suzanne
Greenhouse 113
FILM-CRITST
French Cinema of Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Difference AS.061.380 (01)
An exploration of a series of contemporary French films that bear witness to the contemporary reality of France as a multi-ethnic society and ask essential questions about cultural identity. Is cultural and ethnic identity something that you are born into or it is a role that you elect or perform? How should individuals living today understand their relation to historical injustices? Are there things that we can learn only through relationships with people from other cultures? Screenings include works of Abdellatif Kechiche, Jacques Audiard, Claire Denis, Céline Sciamma, Michael Haneke, Mathieu Kassovitz, the Dardennes. $50 LAB FEE
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM, W 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Roos, Suzanne
Room: Greenhouse 113
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/12
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.391 (01)
Love and Film
T 1:30PM - 4:00PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Ward, Meredith C
Gilman 50
FILM-CRITST
Love and Film AS.061.391 (01)
In this course, we explore different understandings of "love" and the way that film has dealt with the concept as a medium. We explore a variety of approaches to the question of "love" - from the agapic to the familial to the romantic - through a series of interdisciplinary readings ranging from philosophy to anthropology. We will also equally explore the question of how film has engaged with the question of love as a concept, and what depictions of human affection - from the general to the personal - it has offered us. Screenings are required for this course.
Lab fee: $50
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM, M 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
Instructor: Ward, Meredith C
Room: Gilman 50
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/12
PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST
AS.061.406 (01)
Animating Cartoons
M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Yasinsky, Karen
The Centre 216
FILM-PROD
Animating Cartoons AS.061.406 (01)
Animating Cartoons: This class will focus on character animation. Through weekly screenings of cartoons and animations and reading comics, the form will be analyzed in class discussions and short papers. Students will create their own hand drawn character and create an extensive story board for an animation involving their character. A scene will be chosen and a short hand-drawn animation from the storyboard will be created.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Yasinsky, Karen
Room: The Centre 216
Status: Open
Seats Available: 1/8
PosTag(s): FILM-PROD
AS.211.222 (01)
Italian Cinema: The classics, the Forgotten and the Emergent.
MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Wegenstein, Bernadette
Gilman 186
INST-GLOBAL
Italian Cinema: The classics, the Forgotten and the Emergent. AS.211.222 (01)
This course traces the history of Italian cinema from the silent era to the new millennium, 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 examine 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, that received international recognition and influenced other national, cinematic productions. We shall also look at the work of less famous, or independent filmmakers who received less critical attention. 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 the mise-en-scène, frame composition, camera movements, editing, and sound. This class is taught in English.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Instructor: Wegenstein, Bernadette
Room: Gilman 186
Status: Open
Seats Available: 10/20
PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.399 (01)
Cinema and Philosophy
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Marrati, Paola
Gilman 208
Cinema and Philosophy AS.300.399 (01)
What do films and philosophy have in common? Do films express, with their own means, philosophical problems that are relevant to our experience of ourselves and the world we live in? This term we will study such issues with a particular focus on questions of justice, truth, revenge, forgiveness, hope, hate, and fear.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: Marrati, Paola
Room: Gilman 208
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/25
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.360.409 (01)
Humanities Research Lab: Documentary Pre-Production
Th 12:00PM - 3:00PM
Wegenstein, Bernadette
Gilman 400
Humanities Research Lab: Documentary Pre-Production AS.360.409 (01)
This class will be a hands-on experience for students to be involved in the early stages of a documentary’s making. Students will be working with the professor on researching, planning, and writing the treatment for a documentary about a forgotten feminist play (1927) from pre-Holocaust Vienna, where diversity and progressive thought were still possible. This romantic comedy centers around a self-determined matriarch, Therese, helping her three daughters navigate the expectations of rigid, societal beliefs – often leading by example – as they find their way into adulthood. Moving back and forth between the archive of its time both through the re-appropriation of Nazi newsreels and propaganda films, as well as ephemeral films of the time and the the new staging of the play, the film will take the audience inside a theater space where a vibrant environment of escapism smashes against the harsh reality of its time, which is as vivid as it was 80 years ago.
