(Offered as THDA 250 and FAMS 341.)  This studio production class will focus on multiple ways of tracking, viewing, and capturing bodies in motion. The course will emphasize working with the camera as an extension of the body to explore radically different points of view and senses of focus. We will experiment with different techniques and different kinds of bodies (human, animal, and object) to bring a heightened awareness of kinesthetic involvement, animation and emotional immediacy to the bodies on screen and behind the camera.

This course will examine the interplay of gender and national identity in post-colonial South Asian cinema. We will begin by tracing the development of the film industry in the region with reference to the historical and political context.  We will look at the different streams of South Asian cinema, from mainstream "Bollywood" movies to regional/national cinema to parallel and diasporic film. Within this framework, we will examine the shifting feminine and masculine representations of nationhood, and the way they intersect with religious identity.

(Offered as ASLC 234 [J] and FAMS 320.)  Is the concept of national cinema useful in the age of globalization?  Given the international nature of cinema at its inception, was it ever a valid concept?  In this course, we will consider how the nation is represented on screen as we survey the history of film culture in Japan, from the very first film footage shot in the country in 1897, through the golden age of studio cinema in the 1950s, to important independent filmmakers working today.

(Offered as GERM 360, ARCH 360, EUST 360 and FAMS 316.) What is performance? What constitutes an event? How can we address a phenomenon that has disappeared the moment we apprehend it? How does memory operate in our critical perception of an event? How does a body make meaning? These are a few of the questions we will explore in this course, as we discuss critical, theoretical, and compositional approaches in a broad range of multidisciplinary performance phenomena emerging from European--primarily German--culture in the twentieth century.

(Offered as MUSI 238 and FAMS 312.)  This course is about exploring, participating in, and documenting the musical communities and acoustic terrain of the Pioneer Valley. The first part of the course will focus on local histories and music scenes, ethnographic methods and technologies, and different techniques of representation. The second part of the course will involve intensive, sustained engagement with musicians and sounds in the Pioneer Valley.

(Offered as ENGL 388 and FAMS 240.)  A first workshop in narrative screenwriting.  Through frequent exercises, readings, and screenings we will explore the fundamentals of scene and story shape as they’re practiced in mainstream commercial filmmaking, while taking a broader look at what a screenplay might be outside of that world.  In the process, we’ll juxtapose two modes of writing that are not mutually exclusive but are often at odds with each other, both historically (within the industry) and aesthetically:  the well-established craft of three-act screenw

This introductory production workshop focuses on the history and practice of film and video portraiture. The class will begin by considering the portrait’s origins in figurative art and still photography before identifying the ways in which the film portrait uses strategies unique to the moving image to convey character and meaning. We will then  trace the development of the genre while also considering its intersections with narrative, documentary and experimental film.

(Offered as ENGL 281, FAMS 220, and ARHA 272.)  “Foundations and Integrations” will be an annual team-taught course between a Critical Studies scholar and moving-image artist.  A requirement of the Film and Media Studies major, it will build on critical analysis of moving images and introductory production work to develop an integrated critical and creative practice.  Focused in particular around themes and concepts, students will develop ideas in both written and visual form.  The theme for spring 2013 will be “Film and Inner Life.”

(Offered as ENGL 280 and FAMS 210.)  An introduction to cinema studies through consideration of a few critical and descriptive terms, together with a selection of various films (classic and contemporary, foreign and American) for illustration and discussion.  The terms for discussion will include, among others:  the cinematic image, mise en scène, montage and editing, narration in cinema, genre, authorship.  Frequent critical writing required.

(Offered as ENGL 180 and FAMS 110.)  A first course in reading films and writing about them. A varied selection of films for study and criticism, partly to illustrate the main elements of film language and partly to pose challenging texts for reading and writing. Frequent short papers. Two 80-minute class meetings and two screenings per week.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester:  Visiting Professor Johnston.  Spring semester:  Visiting Lecturer Pritchett.