Courses Fall/Winter 2018-19

• Instructor: Gunnar Iversen
• What is film? How does film impact us and our society? How do films tell stories? This course introduces students to the vocabulary and issues of Film Studies and surveys three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as an art and entertainment form, the aesthetics of film form, and film as a social practice.
• The course is divided into three units. Unit 1, “Terms and Core Elements of Film,” introduces students to the basic elements of cinema as an artistic and communicative form. In Unit 2, “Film as a Social and Cultural practice,” we look at the relationship between film and society. Unit 3, “Film as Narrative Storytelling,” discusses different forms of storytelling in cinema, including genres and styles.
• Evaluation: Each section of the course will be examined separately by an In-Class Test, an Out-of-Class Essay and a Final Exam. Attendance and participation in the corresponding discussion group is required and will be evaluated as part of the final grade.
• Lecture format: Lecture and Screening (three hours/week); discussion group (1 hours/week)
• Text: Textbook and additional readings on Ares.

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• Instructor: Gunnar Iversen
• What is film? How does film impact us and our society? How do films tell stories? This course introduces students to the vocabulary and issues of Film Studies and surveys three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as an art and entertainment form, the aesthetics of film form, and film as a social practice.
• The course is divided into three units. Unit 1, “Terms and Core Elements of Film,” introduces students to the basic elements of cinema as an artistic and communicative form. In Unit 2, “Film as a Social and Cultural practice,” we look at the relationship between film and society. Unit 3, “Film as Narrative Storytelling,” discusses different forms of storytelling in cinema, including genres and styles.
• Evaluation: Each section of the course will be examined separately by an In-Class Test, an Out-of-Class Essay and a Final Exam. Attendance and participation in the corresponding discussion group is required and will be evaluated as part of the final grade.
• Lecture format: Lecture and Screening (three hours/week); discussion group (1 hours/week)
• Text: Textbook and additional readings on Ares.

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• Instructor: Aboubakar Sanogo
• This course will explore the most important ways in which the cinema has been thought about, discussed, analyzed, studied, written about and transmitted. It will examine the multiple ways in which the cinematic world is constructed and experienced as an art form and as a repository, a conveyor as well as a site of experimentation of social, cultural and political imaginaries. While looking at the ways in which the cinema creates meaning through its own language (mise en scene, cinematography, editing, sound, etc.) we will also investigate the numerous ways in which it has been transformed and dispersed in recent years since the advent of the digital (online platforms, VOD, interactivity, etc.), and how it has, in the process, contributed in its own unique way, to reshaping the world and our relationship to it.
• Evaluation: In class quizzes and take home exams (tentative)
• Required Text (TBA)

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• Instructor: Marc Furstenau
• The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the main theories and methods of analysis that have been developed for the study of film. As we trace the history of film theory, we will consider a wide range of significant examples of film analysis and interpretation, as well as broader accounts of the cinema as a medium. We will view films chosen from throughout the history of the cinema, representing various genres, styles, and national contexts. The main theme that will be developed in the course is the question of cinema as a popular art. Our primary case study will be the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock. We will view several of his most significant films, which have raised key theoretical questions for film critics.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Reading Reports, Essay, Exams
• READINGS: The main text for this course is Marc Furstenau, ed. The Film Theory Reader: Debates and Arguments (New York: Routledge, 2010), which will be available at Haven Books. Additional readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• Instructor: Marc Furstenau
• The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the main theories and methods of analysis that have been developed for the study of film. As we trace the history of film theory, we will consider a wide range of significant examples of film analysis and interpretation, as well as broader accounts of the cinema as a medium. We will view films chosen from throughout the history of the cinema, representing various genres, styles, and national contexts. The main theme that will be developed in the course is the question of cinema as a popular art. Our primary case study will be the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock. We will view several of his most significant films, which have raised key theoretical questions for film critics.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Reading Reports, Essay, Exams
• READINGS: The main text for this course is Marc Furstenau, ed. The Film Theory Reader: Debates and Arguments (New York: Routledge, 2010), which will be available at Haven Books. Additional readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• Instructor: David Richler
• In this course, we will focus on the film industry’s three major branches—production, distribution, and exhibition. A wide range of films will be screened and analyzed, from “blockbusters” to “art films” and studio-based “indies.” Adopting a transnational perspective, we will analyze film content and style in relation to various industry practices and technological developments. Students will be asked to consider how the structure of the industry, along with different forms of commercial logic and strategy, has shaped the conduct and output of Hollywood and other film industries.
• The goal is to examine how the film industry promotes and represents itself. To this end, we will look at how fiction films, documentaries, DVD extras and fan texts address their audience and depict the industry, its practitioners, and the creative process of filmmaking. We will also examine how producers, exhibitors, and distributers have marketed films, and how audiences and critics have consumed and interpreted them. In doing so, the course will explore the complex socio-cultural, economic, and technological forces that have shaped contemporary film, all of which make it difficult to separate the art of cinema from its commercial status as industrial mass entertainment.
• Topics include, but are not limited to: the studio system; the relationship between independent, art, and mainstream filmmaking; film promotion (trailers, posters, etc.) and branding; auteurism and the commerce of authorship; the economic functions of genre and star talent; the role of critics and film festivals; blockbusters and box-office; fandom and spectatorship; transmedia and industrial convergence; the rise of digital platforms such as DVD and Video-on-Demand (VOD).

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• Instructor: Bianca Briciu
• This course will explore documentary as a tool for social activism. We will analyze the roles of ethics and aesthetics in the construction of films that aim to raise awareness about social inequality and injustice. We will screen a wide range of documentaries, discussing the techniques they use in order to incite social engagement such as interview techniques, narrative structure, script writing, camera placement, sound and film editing. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of documentary for political action as well as the responsibility of the filmmaker for his/her audience and the filmed subjects. Documentaries influence our understanding of the world and as such, it is crucial for film students to understand their conventions and develop a critical view of truth claims.
• The evaluation will be based on critical reading responses, presentation, film analysis and final essay.
• Required text TBA

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• Instructor: Bianca Briciu
• This course will explore the category of “national cinema,” and the concepts of national identity. We will focus specifically on the Chinese-language context, namely, the cinemas of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with brief detours to Singapore, Malaysia and finally the Chinese diaspora. We will address issues of cultural translation and the evolving status of “the national” In an increasingly globalized world. Throughout the semester we will consider the following questions: (1) what is the relationship between cinema and modernity?; (2) what constitutes “China”/”Chineseness” in the global imagination?; (3) what does the circulation of Chinese cinemas domestically and internationally tell us about the concept of national identity?; and finally, (4) how have digital technologies impacted the production and consumption of films?

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• Instructor: Bianca Briciu
• This Japanese cinema course will offer students the opportunity to understand the genre’s development in the Japanese cultural context. We will view both well-known films such as Rashōmon and films that are still little known outside Japan, such as The Burmese Harp and Floating Clouds. We will locate Japanese cinema within debates about Japanese national identity, migration and multiculturalism, gender, economic restructuring, tradition and aesthetics.
• The course has three aims: familiarizing the students with the historical and cultural context in which the films were made, connecting the study of national cinema with more general aspects of film theories and finally, showing less known Japanese films besides the canonical ones. We will problematize in class the tension between the films’ role in representing Japanese culture and their transcendence of national boundaries through cinematic language.
• The evaluation will be based on critical reading responses, presentation, film analysis and final essay.
• Required text TBA

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• Instructor: Tom McSorley
• The art of film arrived in Canada at the end of the 19th century; Canadians began making films shortly thereafter. This course will trace the fascinating and sometimes troubled evolution of filmmaking in Canada from the silent era up to 1980. Exploring the influence of documentary cinema on the fiction feature film in Canada after the founding of the National Film Board of Canada, we will also be looking at examples of Canada’s accomplishments in animation and experimental filmmaking. The course will also probe the relationship, political and economic, between Canada and the USA generally, and Canada and Hollywood specifically. This exciting cinematic journey will take us from the oldest surviving silent film in Canada to the arrival of such internationally renowned talents as Norman McLaren, Denys Arcand, and David Cronenberg.

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• Instructor: Malini Guha
• This course is structured around the study of three filmmakers, namely Pedro Almódovar, Ousmane Sembene and Claire Denis.
• We will investigate the thematic motifs and stylistic tendencies found across the work of each of these three directors while also paying close attention to issues of gender, genre, intertextuality, political concerns and national/production contexts.  In addition to this, we will survey a number of key concepts belonging to the contemporary study of authorship including ‘the commerce of authorship’ as well as examining the figure of the auteur in relationship to larger social and cultural phenomena related to postcolonialism, race and gender.

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• Instructor: Charles O’Brien
• This course investigates questions of film and media authorship through a study of the work of the great silent-era comedian/filmmakers. The focus is on the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, with consideration given also to major contemporaries such as Mabel Normand, Max Linder, and Harold Lloyd. Key topics include: the prominence of comedians in the literature on film and media authorship; the challenge of integrating comic performances shaped in live-entertainment media into a feature-length narrative film; the treatment of filmic space in Chaplin versus Keaton; and differences between slapstick and romantic comedy with regard to gender representation.
• Student evaluation will be based on two five-page Short Essays (15 percent each of the final course grade); a Close Analysis Paper (30 percent); and a Take-Home Exam (40 percent).

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• Instructor: José Sánchez
• Subject Matter: This course will examine the films of Luchino Visconti and Pedro Almodóvar against their cultural, historical and social backgrounds to see if we can find similarities in the thematic concerns and formal elements between two film makers separated by time, nationality and social background. The approach to the course is auteuristic in a fairly broad sense of the world. The basic assumption is that the central role of both directors in making the films must be taken into account to fully understand the connection between their works and the social context from which they emerged. Yet, we will also look at the contribution of other people involved in making these films and also at the economic, socio-political and practical factors that influenced
• CAVEAT: Films screened in this course may contain disturbing images and sounds. In order to conduct valid film analyses, students must be able to adopt a critical distance vis-à-vis audiovisual material that might be unsettling or shocking.  Individuals who are unable or unwilling to adopt such critical distance should not take this Film Studies course.
• Evaluation: Short assignment, quizzes, final exam
• Lecture format: lecture & screening (three hours/week); seminar (1 hour/week)
• Text: Library & CU Learn

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• Instructor: José Sánchez
• Subject Matter: Horror films often have been considered as being among the lowest and most exploitative of cinematic genres. Despite such criticisms, the horror genre is more complex than it initially may seem to be. Critics from a variety of fields have recognized that horror films provide a complicated but popular forum in which social tensions may be interrogated. This course will serve as an introduction to major films within the genre to analyze how they use fear to analyze contemporary society .
• CAVEAT: Films screened in this course may contain disturbing images and sounds. In order to conduct valid film analyses, students must be able to adopt a critical distance vis-à-vis audiovisual material that might be unsettling or shocking.  Individuals who are unable or unwilling to adopt such critical distance should not take this Film Studies course.
• Evaluation: Short assignment, quizzes, final exam
• Lecture format: lecture & screening (three hours/week); seminar (1 hour/week)
• Text: Library & CU Learn

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• Instructor: Gunnar Iversen
• The objective of this course is to provide a historical survey of the evolution of cinema around the globe, beginning with the invention of the medium in the late 19th century until 1945. As the title of the course suggests, we will study the most significant film movements from around the world in an effort to explore the development of cinematic cultures from both a national as well as a transnational perspective. As many have argued, world cinema must be examined as a set of complex and overlapping circulatory practices that often remain grounded within a national context while also exceeding the nation state as a result of the global nature of film production, distribution and exhibition. We will pay careful attention the development of film form and style in this course as it pertains to a variety of film movements and categorizations such as the ‘cinema of attractions’, Soviet Montage, German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism and Japanese studio filmmaking. We will also study the most significant technological shifts of this historical period, including the coming of sound and colour.

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• Instructor: Gunnar Iversen
• The objective of this course is to study some of the most salient developments in the history of world cinema from 1945 to the present day. More specifically, we will examine cinematic practices from around the world as a set of complex and overlapping circulatory practices that often remain grounded within a national context while also exceeding the nation state as a result of the global nature of film production, distribution and exhibition. As such, we will consider a number of the most influential film movements of the time period, including Italian neo-realism, the French New Wave, postcolonial cinema, and ‘slow cinema’, among others. We will also explore global accounts of popular usages of narration and style, such as ‘network narratives’ and ‘intensified continuity’ as well as some of the most significant technological innovations of the era, including the rise of lightweight film technology in the post-war period and the more recent dawn of digital cinema.

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• Instructor: Laura Taler
• In MOVING IMAGE PRACTICE 1 students will be led through a variety of hands-on projects towards a better understanding of the considerations required in the creative process of filmmaking. Smartphones, digital cameras, sound equipment, and editing tools will be used to gain basic and varied skills in filmmaking practice.  Students will screen and present their projects in class.  The discussion of these projects will be an essential aspect of the course.

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• Instructor: Aubrey Anable
• An introduction to the study of video games as a popular media form, an emerging aesthetic, and a social and cultural practice. Topics include: the history of video games, game form, genre, the game industry, narrative, art and design, interactivity, and theories of play. Playing a variety of video games will be an essential component of this course, though no gaming experience or special equipment are required.
• Evaluation will be based on two short writing assignments, a midterm test, and a final project.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: This is the same course as the previously offered FILM 2601A Film Genres: The Video Game. If you have already received credit for that course, do not enroll in FILM 2809.

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• Instructor: Christopher Rohde
• Special topic: Action Cinema, Gender and American Society
• This course will examine the American action film genre through the lens of gender and sexuality, focusing on how action films reflect the cultural attitudes and sexual politics of American society at different points in history. Emphasis will be placed on deconstructing tropes common to the action genre through a critical feminist framework, incorporating other methodologies including psychoanalysis and queer theory.
• Note: It is strongly encouraged that students complete FILM 1101 and FILM 2000 prior to taking this course.
• Evaluation: TBA

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• Instructor: David Hanley
• Immigrants, Exiles and Ethnics: The Development of a Multicultural Canadian Cinema
• This course looks at representations of the immigrant over several decades of Canadian cinema, beginning with examples from the 1950s through the 1980s, and then focusing on the emergence in English Canada of a generation of filmmakers from immigrant communities in the 1990s, before finishing with a look at examples from French language Quebec cinema and a discussion of current trends. Among the issues discussed will be the representation of racial and ethnic diversity and how these representations change when members of minority communities are producing the images, the extent to which films about immigrants are an outgrowth of Canadian cinema’s tendency to feature outsider protagonists, how debates over multiculturalism surface in these films, and whether the effect they had on mainstream Canadian cinema was temporary or permanent.
• Among the filmmakers whose work is likely to be screened include Atom Egoyan, Deepa Mehta, Mina Shum, Clement Virgo and Srinivas Krishna.
• All readings will be posted on CULearn.
• Evaluation will be based on short written assignments and a final essay. There will also be a mark for attendance and participation.

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• Instructor: Laura Horak
• cross-listed with WGST 3812
• How do moving images participate in the production of gender? In what ways is this process inflected by sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, and national identity? This course will investigate the crucial role of normative and “deviant” genders in the history of moving image production, distribution, and reception. We will investigate the way audiovisual texts use formal means (such as mise-en-scene, editing, camerawork, acting, lighting, and make-up) to make gender visible and the display of gender difference pleasurable. We will also consider the gendered politics of labour in film industries and the ways that genre systems (like the romantic comedy) produce gendered meanings and forms of address. The course will also investigate the ways that feminist, Indigenous, transgender, and queer filmmakers have inventively rethought cinema and video for poetic and political ends.
• Learning Outcomes
• By the end of this term, students will be able to:
  • Give a nuanced account of gender that takes into account historically- and geographically-specific meanings and a wide array of gender expressions and identities.
  • Notice the narrative and formal elements of an audiovisual text (e.g. mise-en-scene, editing, camera placement and movement) and use these elements to sustain an argument about a media text.
  • Generate creative, original arguments about gender and moving images and support these arguments with evidence.
  • Write an accessible, well-researched entry for Wikipedia, bringing information about notable cis women and transgender media workers to a global readership
• Course readings will be available online through Ares and cuLearn.
• One of the main assignments in this course is to create a new or expand an existing Wikipedia entry about a woman and/or transgender filmmaker. You do not need to have any technical ability or experience. The assignment gives you the opportunity to do original research, assess sources, learn technical, practice a different style of writing, collaborate with other students and Wikipedia editors to improve their article, and to write something that could be read by millions of people around the world. The assignment has been broken into small steps to make it easier. The Wikipedia Project grade will be determined as follows: 10% Bibliography, 10% Peer Review, 80% Final Wikipedia Page.
• The final course grade will be calculated as follows:
  • Attendance 10%
  • Wikipedia Project 40%
  • Final Essay 50%

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• Instructor: James Deaville
• also cross-listed as MUSI 3402
• This course examines the historical use of music (and sound) in film, from the silent era to the present day, studying the techniques, styles and theory of film music through the examination of selected scenes.  We begin with a brief introduction to the technical aspects of film music, then chronologically and theoretically survey its history (the major portion of the course) and conclude with the consideration of such topics as music in Bollywood, films about music and music for television and animation.  Lectures are copiously illustrated with examples from films. Instead of a formal term paper, students will be required to write a 1500-word review of the music for one film, from a selection of four films determined by the class. Attendance at the weekly screenings is required.
• Evaluation: Midterm (30%), Final (35%), Review (25%), 2 scheduled quizzes (10%)

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Instructor: Charles O’Brien

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• Instructor: Aboubakar Sanogo
• Preamble: The project of this course is to introduce students to African cinema through its history, some of its major filmmakers, films and institutions, its key debates and challenges as well as its potential futures.
• Please Note: Students taking this course will have hands-on experience organizing the African Union Film Festival held on campus in partnership with the African Embassies and High Commissions in Canada and the Canadian Film Institute.
• Course Description: This course will explore the history of cinema in Africa, from its beginnings to the present. It will explore among other things the work of the Lumiere brothers in Africa, the colonial cinema, the multiple ways in which Africans have used the cinema since the advent of independence starting in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the recent boom in film production on the continent. The works of such masters as Ousmane Sembene, Souleymane Cisse, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Abderrahmane Sissako, Med Hondo, Faouzi Bensaidi, Fanta Nacro, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, John Akomfrah, will be explored. Such major concerns in African cinema as the problem of auteurism, spectatorship, realism, third cinema, the national, feminism, the popular, cinephilia, Nollywood, the postcolonial, race, Afro-futurism, genre and the challenge of the digital will also be examined.
• Students will participate in organizing on the campus of Carleton University, the African Union Film Festival, held in collaboration with the African Embassies and High Commissions in Canada and the Canadian Film Institute. This will include writing entries about the various films being shown in view of their presentation to the general public through both print and online media as well as participating in the promotion and actual logistics of the operation of the festival.
• Evaluation: Take home exam, research paper, final exam, blog entries.

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• Instructor: Jenna Stidwell
• Special Topic: American Animation
• Brief description: TBA
• Evaluation Process: TBA
• Required Text: Readings will be available for download via CULearn

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• Instructor: Charles O’Brien
• This course examines the role of digital technology in cinema through a focus on digitalization’s impact on the feature film. Key topics include: the effects of digital exhibition on film style and narration; the immersion aesthetic associated with digital sound; digitalization’s transformation of the workflow and personnel hierarchies of film production; the challenge to theatrical exhibition of film-viewing via small-screen digital media; and the role of digital technology in facilitating film restoration and otherwise conditioning our access to the cinema’s past.
• Student evaluation will be based on two five-page Short Essays (15 percent each of the final course grade); a Close Analysis Paper (30 percent); and a Take-Home Exam (40 percent).

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• Instructor: Malini Guha
• In this course, we will examine the longstanding and myriad relationships  between cinema and the city.  We will take an interdisciplinary approach to this topic, examining ‘cinematic cities’ by drawing upon film and urban studies, as well as cultural geography and cultural theory. Specific case studies will tentatively include (but will not be limited to) London as well as New York as featured in ‘action cinema’.

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• Instructor: Nadia Bozak
• An intermediate workshop involving regular assignments in writing for film.
• Also listed as ENGL 3902.
• Visit https://carleton.ca/english/wp-content/uploads/ENGL-3902A-Bozak-F18-prelim.pdf for course outline and instructions on applying to this course with a portfolio.

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• Instructor: Malini Guha
• This course introduces students to advanced methods of scholarly research in film studies, with an emphasis on situating cinema within an interdisciplinary as well as cross media context. Topics to be covered include: the status of film vis-à-vis other forms of media; the history of film studies as an multi-disciplinary field; the nature of cinema in the era of digital convergence, divergence and relocation; recent developments in film theory; theories of intersectionality pertaining to gender, race and sexuality.
• Method of Evaluation: TBA

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• Instructor: Laura Horak
• cross-listed with FILM 5506
• This course will explore histories and theories of transgender cinema, with a focus on films and videos made by trans, nonbinary, Two Spirit, and gender nonconforming people in North America and Europe from the 1990s through today. Topics may include: trans spectatorship, YouTube videos, web series, documentary, experimental film, activism, and Black and Indigenous film authorship.
• Course readings will be available online through Ares and cuLearn.

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• Instructor: Marc Furstenau
• Topic: Film Theory and the Philosophy of Art
• cross-listed with FILM 5500
• Description: This course will consider the history of debates in film theory about the aesthetic status of the cinema. One of the very first questions to be asked about the new medium of film was whether it could be art. The cinema emerged at a time when the very concept of art – its status, its value, its significance – was being questioned by philosophers and critics, and being redefined by artists experimenting with new forms and materials. We will consider the effect that the emergence of the cinema had on these debates, reading representative essays in film theory and in the philosophy of art.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Reading Reports, Essay
• READINGS: Readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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Go to https://carleton.ca/filmstudies/undergraduate/practicum/ for application instructions, deadlines, and course description.

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Go to https://carleton.ca/filmstudies/undergraduate/practicum/ for application instructions, deadlines, and course description.

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• Instructor: José Sánchez
• Subject Matter: This course analyzes a far-ranging selection of films that are marked as having been extremely controversial and therefore censored, or outright banned, in their countries of origin or in the international arena. The purpose is to provide a context to understand why some representations of race, sexuality and violence create a concurrent censorship and why others are perceived as acceptable depending the period and the countries.
• CAVEAT: Films screened in this course may contain disturbing images and sounds. In order to conduct valid film analyses, students must be able to adopt a critical distance vis-à-vis audiovisual material that might be unsettling or shocking.  Individuals who are unable or unwilling to adopt such critical distance should not take this Film Studies course.
• Evaluation: 3 short assignments (10%, 15%, 20%); final research assignment (45%); participation (10%)
• Lecture format: lecture & screening (three hours/week); seminar (2 hours/week)
• Text: Library & CU Learn

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• Instructor: Aubrey Anable
• This advanced seminar will explore approaches to analysing video games through the lenses of feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and disability studies. No video game expertise or experience is required to be successful in this course. Weekly seminar and gaming lab attendance is mandatory.
• Evaluation will be based on weekly discussion questions, game demo and presentation, short game analysis paper, and a final project.
• Course readings will be available electronically.

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• In rare cases, students may design a course of reading that they complete independently, with the supervision of a faculty member. A final essay is the usual assignment.
• In order to qualify for an independent study, students must have a CGPA of 10.00 or higher in Film Studies and fourth-year standing. To apply, students must meet with their proposed supervisor well in advance of the start of term and agree on a topic. The student must then write a proposal that includes: a description of the topic including key research questions, a list of proposed readings and films, a description of all assignments with deadlines, and the name of the proposed supervisor.
• The proposal must be sent to the Undergraduate Supervisor at least 2 weeks before the start of term so that it can be reviewed and approved by the Program Committee. Students will not be permitted to register for this course until their proposal is approved.

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• In rare cases, students may design a course of reading that they complete independently, with the supervision of a faculty member. A final essay is the usual assignment.
• In order to qualify for an independent study, students must have a CGPA of 10.00 or higher in Film Studies and fourth-year standing. To apply, students must meet with their proposed supervisor well in advance of the start of term and agree on a topic. The student must then write a proposal that includes: a description of the topic including key research questions, a list of proposed readings and films, a description of all assignments with deadlines, and the name of the proposed supervisor.
• The proposal must be sent to the Undergraduate Supervisor at least 2 weeks before the start of term so that it can be reviewed and approved by the Program Committee. Students will not be permitted to register for this course until their proposal is approved.

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• Instructor: Aubrey Anable
• This graduate seminar will consider the ways that feelings and emotion figure in theoretical and historical accounts of film and media. Questions about emotion and “affect” are at the root of contemporary debates about identity, subjectivity, politics, and representation. Yet, the body—its sensual capacities and vulnerabilities—is often figured as that which media technologies and those who study them must overcome or entirely deny.
• Many of the readings for the course will cover the contemporary “affective turn” in theory, its debates, and its critics.

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• Instructor: Laura Horak
• This course offers a rigorous orientation to the discipline of Film Studies. We will think critically about and practice key methodologies of the discipline, ranging from interpretation and close analysis, to building arguments (both written and audiovisual) conducting archival and online research, and formulating original research project proposals. We will also explore the genealogies of key concepts in Film Studies, including national cinema, genre, and authorship. In the course, students will work on their analytic, writing, research, and communication skills.
• Learning Objectives
• By the end of this term, students are expected to be able to:
  • Perform a close analysis of an audiovisual text, paying close attention to sound as well as visual elements.
  • Make inventive arguments about films using evidence and a logical chain of reasoning.
  • Use multiple methods to track down primary and secondary sources, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and assess critically the material they find.
  • Conduct original archival research, engaging with the unique collections of Ottawa-area institutions.
  • Describe the genealogy of key concepts in Film Studies, such as national cinema, genre, and authorship.
  • Use drafts, feedback, and thoughtful revisions to improve their writing.
  • Create a persuasive research project proposal.
• Course readings will be available online through Ares and cuLearn. I also recommend the following books, which are on reserve at MacOdrum library and available online for purchase. These books are not required.
  • Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. (Available online thru the library)
  • Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. Writing Analytically. 7th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015. (Available on cuLearn)
  • Peters, Robert L. Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or a Ph. D. New York: Noonday Press, 1997. (On 2-hr reserve at the library)
• Grades will be calculated as follows:
  • Leading Class Discussion 10%
  • Close Analysis Essay 15%
  • Archival Object Project 30%
  • Proposal 45%

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• Instructor: Aubrey Anable
• Building on FILM 5010, this course continues a rigorous orientation to the discipline of Film Studies. We will think critically about and practice key methodologies of the discipline. During the winter term, we will participate in the on-going theoretical conversations of the discipline, reading both foundational and newer work. These conversations include: What is the nature and purpose of film? How do film and other audiovisual media shape individuals and societies? Does it make a difference whether something is shot on and projected from celluloid film vs. digital technologies? What happens to us when we watch movies? Students will also explore the genealogies of key concepts in Film Studies and work on their analytic, reading, writing, research, teaching, and communication skills.

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• Instructor: Charles O’Brien
• Also cross-listed as MUSI 5200
• Course description: The familiar characterization of cinema as a visual art has enabled a neglect of the cinema’s sonic dimension that endures into the present day, when key aspects of film sound continue to receive minimal attention from scholars of film and media. Such aspects provide the focus of this course, which examines film history from the standpoint of the role in cinema of music and sound. Topics covered include: major turning points in the history of the technology and aesthetics of film music and sound; the function on movie soundtracks of music relative to dialogue and ambient noise; sound’s role in the filmic representation of social difference, including gender and race; how popular songs function as film accompaniment in contrast to orchestral music; the treatment of sound in silent films versus sound; the history of film-theoretical reflection on music and sound; the history of cinema’s interface with cognate media such as recorded music, radio, television, and the internet; and the virtues and limitations of specific critical methods for film-soundtrack analysis.
• The main course requirements are likely to include the following: reading the weekly assignments and attending all lectures and screenings; completing an exam; submitting one or two papers; giving two short class presentations; and completing short, ungraded in-class writings.

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• Instructor: Malini Guha
• This interdisciplinary course will examine the relationships between cinema and ‘the world’. Topics to be explored in the course include: ‘the world as picture’, ‘world cinema’, ‘the worlding of film and media’,  ‘queer cinema in the world’ as well as ‘film and globalization’.

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• Instructor: Marc Furstenau
• Topic: Film Theory and the Philosophy of Art
• cross-listed with FILM 4501
• Description: This course will consider the history of debates in film theory about the aesthetic status of the cinema. One of the very first questions to be asked about the new medium of film was whether it could be art. The cinema emerged at a time when the very concept of art – its status, its value, its significance – was being questioned by philosophers and critics, and being redefined by artists experimenting with new forms and materials. We will consider the effect that the emergence of the cinema had on these debates, reading representative essays in film theory and in the philosophy of art.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Reading Reports, Essay
• READINGS: Readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• Instructor: Laura Horak
• cross-listed with FILM 4002
• This course will explore histories and theories of transgender cinema, with a focus on films and videos made by trans, nonbinary, Two Spirit, and gender nonconforming people in North America and Europe from the 1990s through today. Topics may include: trans spectatorship, YouTube videos, web series, documentary, experimental film, activism, and Black and Indigenous film authorship.
• Course readings will be available online through Ares and cuLearn.

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Instructor: A. Sanogo

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