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Media Theory

ARHI141A PO-01: (Re)present Africa: Art, Hist, Film

  • Instructor: Jackson, Phyllis J.
    • Tuesday; 1:15-4:00 p.m.
    • Room 110, LeBus Court
    • Media Theory

Seminar centers on independent African films to examine (re)presentations of the people, arts, cultures and socio-political histories of Africa and its Diaspora. Course critically examines the cinematic themes, aesthetics, styles and schools of post-independence African and African Diasporic filmmakers. Letter grade only.

ART 181G: Abjection, Beauty, & Difference

  • Instructor: Gonzales-Day, Ken
    • Monday/Wednesday; 1:15-2:30 p.m.
    • Room 119, Lang Art Bldg
    • Media Theory

Theory Seminar in Art: The Abject, Beauty, and Difference. This course will highlight the intersection of modern and and contemporary art criticism with race and gender issues in contemporary U.S. culture. This course fulfills the art theory requirement for Scripps Art, and/or Media Studies majors. Though not restricted to art majors, this seminar course is intended to help prepare majors for their capstone project. In addition to presentations and exams, students will be expected to produce a final research project/paper.

LIT 136 CM-01: American Film Genres- The Hollywood Western

  • Instructor: Warner, Nicholas O.
    • Monday/Wednesday; 2:45-4:00 p.m.
    • Room 01, Bauer Center
    • Media Theory

Mainstream genres can be seen as expressions of American culture’s popular mythology. This course will concentrate on selected genres to examine the social values, issues, and tensions that underlie these narratives and their characteristic ways of resolving fundamental societal conflicts. The genre for spring 2025 will be, “The Hollywood Western” (Professor Warner) and “Horror” (Professor Morrison) This course focuses on that most distinctively American of all film genres, the Western. We will explore such themes as wilderness vs. civilization; race relations; gender roles; and notions of American national identity. Students will engage in close study of about 10-12 films, and will read background materials in film criticism, American history, and the culture of the American west. Our main goal will be to achieve a deeper understanding of the Hollywood Western in and of itself and as a significant historical and political phenomenon. In addition, the course seeks to enhance students’ writing skills and to give students more expertise in viewing, understanding, and writing about the great art form of cinema. Written work consists of essays of varying length, a midterm, and take-home final project.

MS 070 PZ-01: Media and Social Change

  • Instructor: Lamb, Gina
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 1-15-2:30 p.m.
      • Room Q120, West Hall
    • Thursday; 7:00-9:00 p.m.
      • Room Q116, West Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

Overview of movements, theories, and methods employed by media makers committed to social change. From Soviet film collectives, through Third Cinema movement of 60s, to feminist, queer, and youth video activist movements in the U.S. that have laid the groundwork for the rise of socially driven media collectives and campaigns today.

MS 090 PZ-01: Ecodocumentary

  • Instructor: Kaneko, Ann
    • Monday/Wednesday; 1:15-2:30 p.m.
    • Room A103, Atherton Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory or Intermediate/Advanced Production

In recent years, as the Anthropocene has become a central framework within the academy, the subfield of ecocinema has developed within media studies. This course will focus on ecodocumentary. Topics include environmental/manmade catastrophe, industrialization, anthropogenic climate change, interspecies relations, ecojustice, environmental racism, consumerism and waste. Readings will draw from a range of fields including ecocriticism and ecocinema studies. Supported by the Robert Redford Conservancy (RRC), this course will teach students the history, theory and production of ecodocumentary. By the end of the course, student teams will have collaborated with RRC partners in the Inland Empire to create short documentaries.

MS 092 PO-01: Principles of Television Study

  • Instructor: Engley, Ryan
    • Monday/Wednesday; 11:00-12:15 p.m.
    • Room 08, Crookshank Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

Television is now at the forefront of political and aesthetic culture in a way that used to be reserved strictly for film, literature, and visual art. Seizing this contemporary moment of TV’s (seemingly) widespread culture legitimation, this course examines the historical development of television study, focusing on concepts such as: flow, immediacy, genre, platform, narrative complexity, liveness, ideology, and bingeing. Letter grade only. Prequisites: MS49, MS50, or MS51.

MS 102 PO-01: Cinematography

  • Instructor: Cecchet, Alessia Lupo
    • Friday; 1:15-4:00 p.m.
    • Room Q120, West Hall, PZ Campus
    • Media Theory or Intermediate/Advanced Production

In this theory/practice course, students will learn to analyze and assess the use of cinematography in film while at the same time they will learn the fundamentals of exposure, camera lenses and sensors, framing and composition, lighting and rigging. Students will practice their critical thinking through the screening of feature-length and short form films and the reading of academic works, while at the same time they will learn how to interact and control light through a hands-on approach. Students with limited knowledge on cameras, lights, and lenses are strongly encouraged to enroll.

MS 112 PZ-01: Anthropology of Media

  • Instructor: Talmor, Ruti
    • Wednesday/Friday; 11:00-12:15 p.m.
    • Room Q120, West Hall
    • Media Theory

In the past two decades, social media has taken hold of people’s imagination and now profoundly shapes our lived experience and understandings of the real. This class combines theory and practice: 1) We will read anthropological texts to study the complex worlds and ways in which social media is produced, circulated, and consumed. 2) Students will learn how to conduct anthropological fieldwork and will conduct semester-long research projects into media worlds of their choice. This course brings anthropology’s cross-cultural perspective and attention to the production of mediated, everyday realities. By placing media cultures in comparative perspective, students will make the strange familiar and the familiar strange, enabling critical thinking about media use and its ramifications.

MS 114 PZ-01: Film Sound

  • Instructor: Ma, Ming-Yuen
    • Wednesday/Friday; 1:15-2:30 p.m.
    • Room Q116, West Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

An intermediate level media studies course exploring how sound functions in cinema. This course focuses on sound as media and the relationship between sound and image through topics including the history of sound technologies and the so-called ‘coming of sound;’ film sound theories, such as French composer Michel Chion’s influential work on audio-visual relationships and the human voice in cinema, as well as feminist film theories on the female body and voice; film music and audience reception; sound space, and the evolving practice of sound recording and reproduction in film. These topics are examined through reading assignments, screenings and listening sessions, in-class presentations, writing and sound recording assignments. This class encourages a critical, creative approach, non-traditional solutions, and awareness of both historical contexts and theoretical frameworks. The course fulfills the media theory and media history requirements for the Intercollegiate Media Studies (IMS) major and minor. Prerequisite: MS49, 50, or 51; or some introductory level music theory courses.

MS 125 SC-01: Critical Game Studies

  • Instructor: Moralde, Oscar
    • Tuesday; 2:45-5:30 p.m.
    • Room 103, Steele Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

This course provides students with the intellectual framework and critical vocabulary to examine video games as media texts. We will inevitably address questions of politics: how can games shape, and how are they shaped by, the current of public life? Who gets to play, particularly along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class? Live and recorded gameplay demonstrations will provide students with the material for criticism and inquiry, alongside contemporary critical games writing that will serve as models for their own writing projects. Participants do not need previous experience with games or computers, but only a willingness to engage with games and gameplay within a critical context. Course meets Media Theory requirement for Media Studies majors.

MS 148D PO-01: Powers of Pleasure

  • Instructor: Friedlander, Jennifer
    • Thursday; 1:15-4:00 p.m.
    • Room 08, Crookshank Hall
    • Media Theory

This course interrogates John Fiske’s contention that “pleasure may be the bait on the hook of hegemony, but it is always more than this; it always involves an element that escapes the system of power.” With this claim in mind, we will: 1) evaluate key arguments in the field regarding pleasure’s complicity with dominant ideological frameworks–particularly with regard to normative views of gender, race, class and sexuality; 2) consider ways in which the critique of pleasure itself may collude with patriarchal, racist, clasist and heteronormative systems of thought; and 3) explore the possibilities for pleasure to undermine established systems of power. Letter grade only. Prerequisites: MS 049 PO, MS 050 PO, and MS 051 PO.

MS 149T PO-01: Seminar: Critical Studies- Core Theories in Media Studies

  • Instructor: Friedlander, Jennifer
    • Tuesday; 1:15-4:00 p.m.
    • Room 08, Crookshank Hall
    • Media Theory

An overview of core traditions in Critical Media Studies through in-depth engagement with key texts. This course serves as preparation for the Senior Seminar by consolidating a foundation in critical theory. Areas of focus include the following: The Frankfurt School, The Chicago School, Pragmatism, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Semiotics, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Psychoanalytical Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Critical Race Theory. Prerequisites: MS 049 PO, MS 050 PO, or MS 051 PO, and one upper level theory class (MS 147 PO – MS 149 PO). May be repeated once for credit.

MS 173 HM-01: Exile in Cinema

  • Instructor: Balerio, Isabel
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 8:10-9:25 p.m.
    • Room 2465, Shanahan Center
    • Media History or Media Theory

A thematic and formal study of the range of cinematic responses to the experience of exile. Exile is an event, but how does it come about and what are its ramifications? Exile happens to individuals but also to collectivities. How does it effect a change between the self and society, homeland and site of displacement, mother tongue and acquired language? This course examines how filmmakers take on an often painful historical process through creativity. Among the authors to read are Aime Cesaire, Edward Said, George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul, Med Hondo, and Hamid Naficy; films to be viewed focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.