Current Undergraduate Courses

• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: This introduction to film studies course approaches the study of film from the perspective of its cultural contexts, formal composition, organizational structure, and critical perspectives. Focus will be placed on learning the vocabulary of film forms, the impact of film’s extratextual realities, and how to analyze its components. Films to be watched will be selected from the 125 years of film history, but they will be presented in terms of that day’s topic, not chronologically. The delivery will be mixed synchronous and asynchronous: students will receive PowerPoint “lectures”, and instructions to watch particular films and do targeted readings every week on their own, and we will use our Zoom meetings to discuss films, lectures, and readings as well as other activities. Students must plan to attend Zoom meetings having already completed the asynchronous course work, with questions and notes on all components of the asynchronous material in hand, so that we can spend our collective time together building on these components.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Asynchronous forum participation; synchronous class participation; a short, focused, film analysis; a midterm exam; and a final exam.
• READINGS: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction. Sixth Edition. Boston and New York: Bedford and St. Martin’s, 2021. The textbook is available for purchase at the Carleton Bookstore as a paperback, loose-leaf, and digital edition.

• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: This introduction to film studies course approaches the study of film from the perspective of its cultural contexts, formal composition, organizational structure, and critical perspectives. Focus will be placed on learning the vocabulary of film forms, the impact of film’s extratextual realities, and how to analyze its components. Films to be watched will be selected from the 125 years of film history, but they will be presented in terms of that day’s topic, not chronologically. The delivery will be mixed synchronous and asynchronous: students will receive PowerPoint “lectures”, and instructions to watch particular films and do targeted readings every week on their own, and we will use our Zoom meetings to discuss films, lectures, and readings as well as other activities. Students must plan to attend Zoom meetings having already completed the asynchronous course work, with questions and notes on all components of the asynchronous material in hand, so that we can spend our collective time together building on these components.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Asynchronous forum participation; synchronous class participation; a short, focused, film analysis; a midterm exam; and a final exam.
• READINGS: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction. Sixth Edition. Boston and New York: Bedford and St. Martin’s, 2021. The textbook is available for purchase at the Carleton Bookstore as a paperback, loose-leaf, and digital edition.

• PROFESSOR: Christopher Rohde
• DESCRIPTION: This course will examine the history, theory and criticism that forms the basis of the academic study of film. Topics covered will include: the historical, technical and artistic development of film images and sounds, interpreting the audiovisual language of cinema, film spectatorship and narrative structure.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Online discussion period attendance (15%), Midterm exam (35%), Written report (15%), Final exam (35%)
• READINGS: The Film Experience: An Introduction, 6th edition, plus assorted online readings

• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: Psychological thrillers are a subgenre of suspense thrillers that use plot twists and other narrative devices to expose, disturb, and interrogate the protagonist’s grasp on reality, often provoking fascinating philosophical, cultural, and psychological questions. This course traces the psychological thriller from its origins in European cinema through Hitchcock, to domestic noir, to technological nightmares, and to the more narratively complex “mind game movies”. Our broad objectives are 1. to understand the concept of genre along with its history in film studies, 2. to learn how to define and recognize a particular genre (the suspense thriller) and one of its subgenres (the psychological thriller) and 3. to analyze how individual films inhabit this (sub)genre by embracing their conventions and/or contesting them. This course will be run as a partial seminar, meaning that it will be largely discussion-based with a lecture component, and as such, it will be held synchronously on Zoom, during which time we will discuss the readings and films, participate in student-led panel discussions, watch full films, and engage in small group activities. Students must have working microphones and webcams to participate in this course. Regular preparation for, attendance of, and engagement in classes is expected of all students.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: The evaluation process will include an asynchronous discussion component, one exam and one paper, a group-led discussion/presentation, and several small assignments.
• READINGS: All required readings will be available on the free external annotation site Perusall.

• PROFESSOR: Aubrey Anable
• DESCRIPTION: This course is 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, narrative and meaning, art and design, and theories of play.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Assessment in this course will follow a “choose your own adventure” format, with a simplified point-based grading scheme. There are three kinds of assignments: Quizzes, Forum Posts, and Short Essays. You will choose which assignments, or which combination of assignments, to complete.
• READINGS: The textbook for this course is: Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction Fourth Edition by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Parajes Tosca (Routledge, 2019).

• PROFESSOR: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: What is cinema? How does it reflect and condition our social world? How do films tell stories with images and sounds? Such questions are essential to this course, which introduces students to methods of analyzing and interpreting films through vocabulary, concepts, and issues taken up in the discipline of Film Studies. The focus is on three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as art and entertainment, film aesthetics, and film as a cultural and social practice. The course has a historical dimension but does not follow a strict historical chronology in the presentation of films or issues. The coverage progresses through basic concepts relating to cinema as an artistic and communicative form; questions relating to the social and cultural aspects of filmic representation; and different approaches to storytelling in cinema, and how these have inflected specific film genres and styles.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Participation in an online discussion forum; completion of quizzes on the reading assignments; take-home midterm and final exams.
• READINGS: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience (Macmillan), Sixth Edition.

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• PROFESSOR: Gunnar Iversen
• DESCRIPTION: This seminar course is an introduction to Film Studies. We will look at film as a popular entertainment form, an art and a social phenomenon. In the course we will discuss different ways of interpreting and analyzing films, and the course will also introduce students to important concepts, ideas, issues and the vocabulary in Film Studies. This course is recommended for Film majors
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Essays
• READINGS: Textbook: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience – An Introduction, Sixth Edition (Macmillan).

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• PROFESSOR: Kester Dyer
• DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to cinema and media by Indigenous directors working in Turtle Island and globally. Drawing on Indigenous scholarship, it reflects on how Indigenous filmmakers have countered dominant misrepresentations, assumptions, and ideologies, and how their work continues to challenge colonialism in various forms and contexts. The course addresses prevalent themes and socio-political concerns, important innovations in genre, key filmmakers, stylistic and methodological approaches, and theoretical concepts that have marked the vibrant expansion of Indigenous cinema and media.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBA.
• READINGS: All readings will be supplied free of charge and made available in Brightspace.

• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: Largely unfamiliar to most Canadians, the Canadian cinema is famously described by film scholar Peter Harcourt as “the invisible cinema: a cinema that exists but is not seen.” This course is intended to illuminate the historical, cultural, and critical outlines of filmmaking in this country. More than simply making apparent the ‘invisible,’ however, the course will also investigate the backgrounds and contexts of film production in Canada from the silent era right up to the 21st century.We will identify and explore the evolution of two major streams of film practice in Canada: documentary and experimental. In addition, the course will examine the troubled, tentative evolution of feature fiction filmmaking in both English, French, and Indigenous-speaking Canada. Our investigations will also explore various recurring themes in our multifaceted, multicultural national cinema: technology, alienation, marginality, identity, Indigeneity, memory, ethnicity, gender, and history.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBA
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[slideme title="FILM 2401A Authorship in Film and Media: Luis Buñuel and Atom Egoyan  – Fall"]

• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: This course offers a detailed and thorough examination of the major works of two directors: Spain’s Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) and Canada’s Atom Egoyan (b.1960). Two of the most acclaimed and controversial film artists in cinema, Buñuel and Egoyan offer skeptical, often ferociously critical investigations of the ideological and moral underpinnings and assumptions of the prevailing social and political orders of their respective eras and cultures. Following their careers chronologically, we will investigate the principal thematic preoccupations, stylistic strategies, and broader cultural contexts of their work, examining as well as the various conditions of production in which that work was made.
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• PROFESSOR: Gunnar Iversen
• DESCRIPTION: 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
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Essays
• READINGS: Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, Fifth Edition. (Macmillan). Additional readings will be available on Brightspace
• Cross-listed with: ENGL2600A

• PROFESSOR: Gunnar Iversen
• DESCRIPTION: In this course, we will 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
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Essays
• READINGS: Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, Fifth Edition. (Macmillan). Additional readings will be available on Brightspace

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• PROFESSOR: Aubrey Anable
• DESCRIPTION: This course is 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, narrative and meaning, art and design, and theories of play.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBA
• READINGS: Required Textbook: Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction, Fourth Edition by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Parajes Tosca (Routledge, 2019).

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• PROFESSOR: Ryan Conrad
• DESCRIPTION: This course exposes students to a wide variety of AIDS film and video from European and American directors. The selection of films accompanying this course varies not just in content, but form, genre and each raises unique questions about desire, the body, trauma, loss, and survival. This selection of film and video ranges from the nearly forgotten no-budget/low-budget activist documentary videos of the early 1980s to sleek multi-million dollar award winning Hollywood features. It is necessary to focus on this diverse range of AIDS films and videos from the beginning of the epidemic through present day in order to learn how formal strategies, aesthetic choices, intended audiences, affective structures, and visual representations of people living with AIDS have changed along with the epidemic over the last forty years of film and video production. Critically engaging with this corpus illuminates how contemporary societies have, and continue to witness, frame, and make meaning of the ongoing epidemic through film and video.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: • ATTENDANCE / PARTICIPATION (15%)
  • IN CLASS MIDTERM (20%)
  • FILM REVIEW (15%)
  • RESEARCH PROPOSAL (20%)
  • RESEARCH PAPER or RESEARCH CREATION IN LIEU OF RESEARCH PAPER (25%)
  • SUGGESTED SYLLABUS REVISION (5%)
• READINGS: Online Readings

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• PROFESSORS: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: This edition of FILM 3901B investigates film aesthetics in connection with issues of disability, with a focus on manifestations of corporeal and other impairment in film representation and narration. Scenes featuring characters with visible disabilities receive special attention from writers, actors, directors, casting agencies, critics, and disability activists. Through an interdisciplinary investigation drawing on concepts from both Film Studies and Disability Studies, the course examines the role of extraordinary bodies in narrative cinema. The course also highlights innovations in casting and storytelling in recent film and television. Essential here has been the emergence over the past ten years of a new generation of filmmakers, who, drawing on a wide range of cultural experience, have been devising new ways of filming disability. Through an examination of a wide range of films—including pathbreaking classics such as Freaks along with numerous recent titles such as The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Surrogate, The Shape of Water, Chained for Life and Keep the Change–the course investigates how scenes featuring disabled characters are scripted, acted, filmed, edited, and integrated into a film’s story.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Weekly film viewing and reading assignments; four short writing assignments; two take-home exams.
• READINGS: Available through Ares Reserves on the Brightspace course website.

• PROFESSOR: Paul Jasen
• DESCRIPTION: This course is designed for emerging arts (and design) professionals in any field. Our focus is on developing fundamental skills in digital media production that will be of use to students planning careers in the arts sector or related industries. Through lessons, case studies, workshopping and collaborative production sessions, students will gain experience in the following areas: website design and development, image editing, audio recording and podcasting, digital photography, streaming video, designing for print, social media integration and writing for the web. Students will leave this course having developed a multi-faceted portfolio project related to their field, as well as confidence and demonstrated proficiency using current media production tools and platforms.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: In-class workshopping activities; small, skills-building assignments; production of a multi-part media project on a topic related to your field or creative practice.
• READINGS AND TECHNOLOGY: TBA
• CROSS-LISTING: This course is cross-listed as MUSI 3201 and ARTH 3809D.

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• PROFESSOR: Kester Dyer
• DESCRIPTION: In this course, students will learn about a range of different methodological approaches in film studies. They will critically examine individual methods, identify their particular advantages and limitations, and consider how the deployment of different methods yields different research outcomes. Students will revisit close formal analysis as a way of reading and writing about film and reflect on the possible combination of complementary entry points into a subject. Other approaches discussed in this course include auteurism, historical analysis, exhibition and reception, socio-politically-driven readings, ideology critique, industry-based analyses, as well as critical standpoints focussed on race, gender, and decoloniality. Throughout the course, students will learn to deploy various methods in their own work and hone their skills in scholarly research, communication, and writing about film.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBA
• READINGS: All readings will be provided free of charge via Brightspace.

• PROFESSOR: Laura Horak
• DESCRIPTION: This course explores the widely varied and inventive world of film and media created by trans, Two Spirit, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people in the United States and Canada. How have trans people used audiovisual media to create new forms of community, identity, and desire? How have Black trans and Indigenous Two-Spirit people used film to craft ways to collectively survive colonialism, racial capitalism, and the prison industrial complex? What challenges do audiovisual media pose to trans struggles for self-determination and liberation?This class will analyze a variety of trans-made feature films, shorts, television shows, YouTube videos, and web series that span modes and genres, including drama, sci-fi, comedy, documentary, and experimental film. We will also compare trans-made media to mainstream representations of trans people. Students will have the opportunity to conduct close analyses of trans-made audiovisual media informed by the latest scholarship in the burgeoning field of Transgender Studies
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Tentative: Attendance (20%), Screening responses (20%), Presentation (20%), Final essay (40%)
• READINGS: Online Readings
• CROSS-LISTED WITH: FILM 5506F

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• PROFESSOR: Kester Dyer
• DESCRIPTION: This course examines the history of debates and more recent discursive tendencies that have characterized the scholarly assessment of cinema in Canada. It looks at constructions of nationhood that have taken place through debates on what Canadian cinema is and what it should be, developments in canon formation, the influence of key institutions such as the NFB, innovative programs like Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle, notable film movements, predominant genres, and policies impacting the Canadian film industry. Considering influential approaches like auteurism, feminism, and queer theory, and emphasizing attempts to move beyond the “two founding cultures” binary in Canadian film studies, the course stresses local contexts as well as the diversity of film cultures across Canada, notably the dynamism of Indigenous and diasporic filmmaking in this context. Overall, the course adopts a decolonial perspective that interrogates the extent to which approaches to Canadian film studies depart from Eurocentric paradigms.
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• READINGS: All readings will be provided free of charge via Brightspace.

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• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: This course will investigate the idea of authorship in various filmmaking contexts in the United States, the former U.S.S.R., Italy, Sweden, and Canada. Starting with more ‘classical,’ established film industries and periods and moving into the more fluid production contexts of the 1990s and 2000s, this course will offer a comparative analysis of the work of four ‘auteur’ directors, as well as conceptions of authorship as they are understood and constructed within often dramatically different production environments.Authorship will also be explored in relation to notions of genre, and in the context of transnational cinema and its response to forces of globalization, forces that can both affirm and subvert the notion of the singular authorial voice.

  The quartet of filmmakers whose work we will explore includes John Ford (U.S.A), Andrei Tarkovsky (U.S.S.R., Sweden), Lina Wertmüller (Italy), and Atom Egoyan (Canada).

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