Archived: 2020-2021 Undergraduate Course Listings

• PROFESSOR: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to various ways of analyzing and interpreting films through the vocabulary, concepts, and issues taken up in Film Studies. The focus is on three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as an art and as entertainment, film aesthetics, and film as a social practice.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Participation in an online discussion forum; quizzes on the reading assignments; additional short writing assignments; and a take-home exam.
• READINGS: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience (Macmillan), Fifth Edition.

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• PROFESSOR: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to various ways of analyzing and interpreting films through the vocabulary, concepts, and issues taken up in Film Studies. The focus is on three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as an art and as entertainment, film aesthetics, and film as a social practice.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION:
• Participation in an online discussion forum; quizzes on the reading assignments; additional short writing assignments; and a take-home exam.
• READINGS: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience (Macmillan), Fifth Edition.

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• PROFESSOR: Aboubakar Sanogo
• DESCRIPTION: 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.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Screening reports; discussion groups; midterm; final exam (tentative)
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Marc Furstenau
• DESCRIPTION: The objective of this course is to introduce students to 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, Exam
• 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 Carleton University Bookstore. Additional readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• PROFESSOR: Marc Furstenau
• DESCRIPTION: The objective of this course is to further explore the main theories and methods of analysis that have been developed for the study of film. Building on FILM 2001, students will explore specific theories of film in more depth. We will consider some of the more significant theoretical debates in the history of film theory, and more recent film and media theory. We will analyse a range of significant films, in relation to the specific theoretical issues we will be considering. We will view films chosen from throughout the history of the cinema, representing various genres, styles, and national contexts.
• 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 Carleton University Bookstore. Additional readings will be available through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• PROFESSOR: David Richler
• DESCRIPTION: 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. 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 distributors 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 the contemporary film landscape, all of which make it difficult to separate the art of cinema from its commercial status as industrial mass entertainment.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: 4 short Reading Reports (40%) and 1 Final Essay (60%), subject to change
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: Course description: This survey course focuses on the major movements and methods that mark the progression of non-fiction film from protocinema to the present. Topics to be addressed: early motion studies, actualities, ethnography, city symphonies, wartime, direct cinema/cinema verité, compilation film, activist film, autobiographical film, essay film, hybrid-documentary, and more. Emphasis will be placed on the conceptual, rhetorical, and contextual dimensions that influence the organizational structures of non-fiction films, allowing for the inclusion of those films that defy easy comprehension and categorization. Students will learn to analyze documentary films in terms of their strategies of representation, their ethics, their theoretical links, and their cultural and historical contexts. This course will be lecture and discussion-based, including film screenings in our virtual classroom. Students will need to have working microphones and webcams to fully participate in this course.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Attendance/participation, very short response papers, quizzes, a mid-length paper, and take-home final exam (subject to change).
• READINGS: Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017, available through the Carleton Bookstore. Other required reading will be made available on cuLearn.

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• PROFESSOR:
• DESCRIPTION:
• METHOD OF EVALUATION:
• READINGS:

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• 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 and French-speaking Canada. Our investigations will also explore various recurring themes in our national cinema: technology, alienation, marginality, identity, memory, ethnicity, history, and interiority.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Mid-term exam, 20%; Essay  (2000 words), 40%; Final Examination: scheduled in exam period, 30%; Participation and discussion: throughout the entire term, 10%.
• READINGS: The primary text will be a Coursepack of various critical writings about cinema in Canada, available at from Carleton University Bookstore. Supplementary reading lists and bibliographies will be distributed throughout the course.

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• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: This course offers a detailed and thorough examination of the entire body of work by American filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999).  One of the most acclaimed and controversial American film artists, Kubrick’s films were often both critically lauded and commercially successful. Following his entire career chronologically, we will investigate the principal thematic preoccupations, stylistic strategies, and broader cultural contexts of Kubrick’s work, while examining the various conditions of production in which that work was made. Theoretical investigations of authorship will be undertaken, but they will not determine our approach to the films. Questions of representation, genre, gender, psychology, technology, alienation, desire, and myth will be raised, as all of Kubrick’s work offers complex and multi-faceted explorations of these ideas.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Short Essay  (600-800 words) 20%; Essay  (1500-2000 words) 50%; Final Examination (Take Home) 30%.
• READINGS: Required readings will be posted on cuLearn. There is no required text, and therefore no cost to be borne by students for readings in this online course.

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• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: Get your hankies out and feel free to purge your tears in the comfort of your own homes as we examine the intricacies of film genre and modality through the lens of the melodrama in this online fall course! Melodrama has long been dismissed for its association with the emotions, excess, woman’s films, and low-brow entertainment, but as we will see in this course, the melodrama offers unique insights into gender, class, nationalism, modernity, race, ethics, psychology and aesthetics. Whether we think of it as a genre, expressive mode, or ideological form, the melodrama at its best employs a variety of aesthetic conventions and stylistics to provide emotional resonance to moral and political issues. This course takes an international perspective focusing on, how melodrama deals with gender, race, and class; the queering of genre; the influence of Hollywood’s genre development on other national cinemas; and the effect of heightened audiovisual sensation on the cinematic experience.This course will be run as a seminar, meaning that it will be discussion-based rather than lecture-based, and as such, it will have a synchronous live-stream meeting component during which time we will: discuss the readings and films; have group presentations; watch full films; and even have small group activities—just like a real classroom (as much as possible). Students will need to have working microphones and webcams to fully participate in this course. Students must acquire a short-term Criterion Channel account in order to access a number of screenings for the course.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: The evaluation process will include participation/attendance, two mid-length papers, a group led discussion/presentation, and a final exam (subject to change).
• READINGS: In addition to other course readings that will be provided on cuLearn, the required text is, Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility by John Mercer available through the Carleton bookstore (please acquire this text prior to the start of class).

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• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: This course traces the psychological thriller from its origins in early Hollywood and German Expressionism through Hitchcock and Preminger, to 70s paranoia and Italian “Giallo,” to contemporary “mind game movies,” such as Mementoand Old Boy. Psychological thrillers are a subgenre of thrillers that use plot twists and other narrative devices to expose and question the protagonist’s grasp on reality. They often incorporate generic strategies from mystery, drama, and horror. Our objective is 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 and subgenre, and 3. to analyze how individual films deal with genres by embracing their conventions and/or contesting them. This course will be run as a seminar, meaning that it will be discussion based rather than lecture based, and as such, it will have a synchronous live-stream meeting component during which time we will discuss the readings and films; have group presentations; watch full films; and even have small group activities—just like a real classroom (as much as possible). Students will need to have working microphones and webcams to fully participate in this course.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: The evaluation process will include participation/attendance, two mid-length papers, a group led discussion/presentation, and a final exam (subject to change).
• READINGS: Course readings will be provided on cuLearn.

• PROFESSOR: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: Offering a survey of the history of the cinema that begins in the late 19th century and continues until World War II, FILM 2606 covers major developments in the history of film from around the world. Through an examination of canonical films and movements as well as lesser-known currents in cinema, the course examines world cinema relative to a variety of historical events, contexts, and movements.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Participation in an online discussion forum; quizzes on the reading assignments; additional short writing assignments; and a take-home exam.
• READINGS: The majority of the reading assignments come from the following textbook: Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History (Macmillan), Fourth Edition.

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• PROFESSOR: Charles O’Brien
• DESCRIPTION: Offering a survey of the history of the cinema that begins with World War Two and continues until the present, FILM 2607 covers major developments in the history of film from around the world. Through an examination of canonical films and movements as well as lesser-known currents in cinema, the course examines world cinema relative to a variety of historical events, contexts, and movements. FILM 2607will be delivered entirely through cuLearn. The course lectures, delivered live during class time, each week, will also be recorded and made available on cuLearn to students unable to attend. All other course activities and assignments, including film viewings, will be delivered asynchronously.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Participation in an online discussion forum; completion of quizzes on the reading assignments; additional short writing assignments; and a take-home exam
• READINGS: The majority of the reading assignments come from the following textbook: Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History (Macmillan), Fourth Edition.

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• PROFESSOR: Laura Taler
• DESCRIPTION: This course is focused on a variety of hands-on projects that will lead students towards a better understanding of the considerations required in the creative process of filmmaking. Students will gain basic skills in shooting images, recording sound, and editing their footage. Students will screen and present their projects in class.  The discussion of these projects is an essential aspect of the course.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: A variety of hands-on creation assignments.
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Aubrey Anable
• DESCRIPTION: 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 (besides a computer) are required. 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.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBD
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Franny Nudelman
• DESCRIPTION: This course examines innovations in documentary filmmaking from 1945 to the present. In the aftermath of the Second World War, documentary filmmakers grappled with violence that was unprecedented in scale; in the decades that followed, they continued to respond to the unanticipated and often incomprehensible crises of their age. In the process, they reinvented the practices of observation, knowledge production, and storytelling in ways that continue to shape the field of documentary. We will consider how documentary filmmakers responded to catastrophic events and how their methods were transformed by changing social conditions—including the growth of institutional psychiatry, the advent of live television, and the robust social movements of the post-war years. Exploring experiments in documentary expression, we will consider film in relation other media forms including sound, photography, and narrative prose. The format of this class will be blended.Please note that although we will not meet for a full four hours each week, in order to take this course, you will need to be available to meet during the scheduled time.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Evaluation will be based on student engagement in discussion (written and spoken) and writing assignments that may include reading responses, journals, blogs. Students will also have the opportunity to produce podcasts and videos that explore and critically engage the subject of documentary.
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Kester Dyer
• DESCRIPTION: This course focusses on the intersection of genre and national cinema in the Canadian context. As such, it deploys genre as a lens through which to explore different cultural and political experiences of Canada. In so doing, the course initiates students to works by filmmakers of different backgrounds who have either privileged genre filmmaking or challenged its paradigms. The course is divided into sections that successively examine genres emphasizing fear, discomfort and anxiety; pleasure, laughter, and entertainment; and geographical space and historical time. Considering both important historical developments and specific sociopolitical contexts, the course thus seeks, via dominant and marginalized perspectives, to reflect on a range of work that engages with and critiques existing models determined by both genre and nation.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBD
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Jenna Stidwill
• DESCRIPTION: This course introduces third-year students to the study of American animation history and aesthetics. During the course students will explore how 20th and 21st century American animation has responded to select political, cultural, and technological developments. Multiple interpretations of animation history will be explored. We will ask: what considerations should we take into account when studying animation within a historical context? What are the significant periods in the genre’s development? What theoretical tools can we bring to bear on animation to enhance our understanding of its history?
• METHOD OF EVALUATION (Tentative): Animation Festival Film Review (15%); Short reading quiz x4 (20%); Research Paper Proposal (20%); Research Paper Chronology (15%); Historical Research Paper
• READINGS: All readings will be made available through cuLearn.

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• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: Film programming is everywhere. From the multiplex movie chains, to the ByTowne Cinema and Mayfair Theatre ‘repertory’ cinemas, to institutions like the Ottawa Film Society and the Canadian Film Institute, to hundreds of film festivals in Ottawa, across Canada and abroad, to online streaming platforms like Netflix, curatorial decisions are being made that will affect what is seen and, equally important, what is not seen. Just what is this cultural practice called film programming? What is its role in contemporary culture, and in what forms does it appear? Who decides what gets shown in the many public presentation contexts of cinematheques, galleries, museums, and film festivals? And, more immediate to the broad intentions of this course, how does it work? How does one actually apply one’s knowledge of and passion for cinema in these various venues? These and many other questions will be discussed and analyzed in this course.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: This course will consist of short weekly writing assignments on specific films presented, as well as four other written assignments throughout the term (approximately 500 words each; one per month).
• READINGS: There is no set text for this course, as it is primarily a course about your responding to and writing about films, not reading about them. The Instructor will place scanned readings on CUleran throughout the course, however, as well as directing students to specific websites and blogs for other reading material.

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• PROFESSOR: Laura Taler
• DESCRIPTION: Building form the skills learned in FILM 2801, this course is focused on how one project moves from concept to completion. Students will complete a series of hands-on creation assignments that lead from development to pre-production to production to post-production, and finally to delivery.  The instructor’s exhibition at the Carleton University Art Gallery will be used throughout the course as a case study.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: A series of hands-on creation assignments that lead to one final project.
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Aubrey Anable
• DESCRIPTION: In the 1990s it was a world of hackers, cyberpunks, Napster, and Y2K. Now we speak of influencers, Netflix, livestreaming, COVID aesthetics, and Zoombombing. For thirty years, the internet has been shifting our media landscape. In this course, we will explore different ways of getting at and thinking through how these shifts have affected film culture: historical, aesthetic, philosophical, and socio-political. We will watch films about the internet and we will also consider the internet as a moving image medium in and of itself. In this course you will learn about the history of the internet, how filmmakers and artists shape our conception of what it is and what it is for, and various ways to analyze digital media culture .
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBD
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR:
• DESCRIPTION:
• METHOD OF EVALUATION:
• READINGS:

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• PROFESSOR: Malini Guha
• DESCRIPTION: 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 medial 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
• READINGS: All readings will be available via cuLearn

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• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: This course offers a close study of the Italian cinema from the Neo-realist period in the mid-1940s up to the present. In addition to analyses of the films and filmmakers in the course, we will explore the historical, cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic development of post-World War II Italy in the contexts of its own internal history, as well as its role in the European Union specifically, and in the more general transnational influences and pressures of globalization. The course will also investigate theories of nationalism and ‘national’ cinema by way of exploring how national identities are imagined, constructed, and/or challenged in Italian cinema.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBD
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Aboubakar Sanogo
• DESCRIPTION: Possibly more than studios, producers and film artists, film festivals are increasingly seen as the most important institution through which debates, ideas and practices around what counts as cinema, how cinema is circulated, accessed, seen and discussed get negotiated. Indeed, it has been argued that film festivals have become something akin to a “government of the cinema” as such. This course will examine and interrogate the veracity of such statements by exploring the new and vibrant sub-field within film studies known as film festival studies,which takes the film festival as its object of inquiry. We will thoroughly interrogate this object, its place and status, its formative and transformative role in the discourses, institutions and production, exhibition and circulation practices within world cinema. Among other things, we will perform close readings of film festival theory, study the politics and economics of film festivals, as well as analyze curatorial,  programming and award policies of various festivals through weekly case studies of such events as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, TIFF, Sundance, FESPACO, Busan, etc.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: In-class presentation, term paper, takes home exam (Tentative)
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Marc Furstenau
• DESCRIPTION: In this seminar course we will consider the history of specific 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, given its status as mere mechanical imitation. The cinema emerged, moreover, 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 philosophical aesthetics, tracing the concept of “imitation,” or mimesis, in the philosophy of art.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Reading Reports, Essay
• READINGS: Readings will be available at Carleton University Bookstore and through the on-line reserve system of the Carleton University library (ARES).

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• PROFESSOR: Kester Dyer
• DESCRIPTION: This course centers on the phenomenon known as Le renouveau du cinema québécois, or the Québec New Wave. Since 2005, observers have described a common set of formal and thematic trends in Québécois auteur cinema, placing this set of films in contrast with the work of previous generations. In this course, we will interrogate the unity of Le renouveau as a film movement by examining the figures associated with it, as well as their precursors and traditions against which they pit themselves. We will also consider the institutional and exhibition context as potential explanations for the emergence of such a vibrant and original body of work by a new generation of filmmakers. Throughout the course, students will analyze key film texts and contemplate the shared aesthetics and philosophical underpinnings that exemplify this corpus, simultaneously gaining an understanding of the dominant ideological concerns that have recently characterized Québec society and which are exhibited through its cinema.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: TBD
• READINGS: TBD

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• PROFESSOR:Marc Furstenau
• TOPIC: This course introduces students to the main terms, concepts, and issues of Film Studies, considering film as an art and as entertainment; analysing the aesthetics of film form; and studying film as a social practice. While there is a historical dimension to the course, we do not follow a strictly historical chronology in the presentation of films or issues.
• EVALUATION: This course introduces students to the main terms, concepts, and issues of Film Studies, considering film as an art and as entertainment; analysing the aesthetics of film form; and studying film as a social practice. While there is a historical dimension to the course, we do not follow a strictly historical chronology in the presentation of films or issues.
• TEXT: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction. Fifth Edition. Boston and New York: Bedford and St. Martin’s, 2018.

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• 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 interpreting the audiovisual language of cinema; the historical, technical and artistic development of film images and sounds; and issues around the filmmaker and genre.
• EVALUATION: Online discussion participation (5 points); Quiz (20 points; Essay (35 points); Final exam (40 points)
• TEXT: There is no required textbook for this course. However, book chapters and excerpts have been assigned for students to read each week. Readings listed in the course calendar are mandatory.

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• PROFESSOR: TBD
• DESCRIPTION: TBD
• EVALUATION: TBD
• TEXT: TBD

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• PROFESSOR: Tom McSorley
• DESCRIPTION: This course offers a detailed and thorough examination of the entire body of work by American filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999).  One of the most acclaimed and controversial American film artists, Kubrick’s films were often both critically lauded and commercially successful.Following his entire career chronologically, we will investigate the principal thematic preoccupations, stylistic strategies, and broader cultural contexts of Kubrick’s work, while examining the various conditions of production in which that work was made. Theoretical investigations of authorship will be undertaken, but they will not determine our approach to the films. Questions of representation, genre, gender, psychology, technology, alienation, desire, and myth will be raised, as all of Kubrick’s work offers complex and multi-faceted explorations of these ideas.
• EVALUATION:
  • I. – Short Essay (600-800 words; 15 May 2020 / 20%). Students are provided suggested topics for their short essay, which will relate to the first decade of Kubrick’s career.
  • II. Essay (1500-2000 words; 8 June 2020; 50%). Students are provided suggested topics for their essay by the Instructor. They are free to develop their own essay topic, but only in direct consultation with the Instructor.
  • III. Final Examination (Take Home; 20 June 2020; 30%). This will be a take home examination and will cover the entire course material.
• TEXT AND SCREENINGS: Required readings will be posted on cuLearn. There is no required text, and therefore no cost to be borne by students for readings in this online course. Where possible, students will be provided free links to some of the films, and to online sources for all of the others. In some cases, students will be responsible for renting films from streaming services.

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• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: Beginning with proto-cinema and moving to early cinema, silent film, “talkies” and beyond, this history of film to 1945 course charts the development of the medium through its artistic, industrial, and technological changes over its first 50 years. We will examine historical influences on film and look at some of the most remarkable film movements in this period, such as American and French serials (like The Perils of Pauline and Les Vampires), German Expressionism (like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis), Soviet Montage (like Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potempkin), and French Poetic Realism, like Marcel Carné’s Children of Paradise). We will chart the development of Hollywood and its establishment of the genre, focusing on comedy through the works of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. We will also consider the beginnings of national cinemas, documentary, and the avant-garde. Students must acquire a short-term Criterion Channel account in order to access a number of screenings for the course. This course will have a live-stream meeting component during which time we can discuss the readings and films and even have small group activities.
• EVALUATION: TBA
• TEXT: In addition to other course readings that will be provided on cuLearn, the required text is Film History: An Introduction, 4th Edition by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell.

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• 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 interpreting the audiovisual language of cinema; the historical, technical and artistic development of film images and sounds; and issues around the filmmaker and genre.
• EVALUATION: Online discussion participation (5 points); Quiz (20 points; Essay (35 points); Final exam (40 points)
• TEXT: There is no required textbook for this course. However, book chapters and excerpts have been assigned for students to read each week. Readings listed in the course calendar are mandatory.

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• 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. Students must acquire a short-term Criterion Channel account in order to access a number of screenings for the course. This course will be delivered asynchronously.
• EVALUATION: TBA
• TEXT: In addition to other course readings that will be provided on cuLearn, the required text is The Film Experience: An Introduction, 5th ed. by Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White.

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• 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. Students must acquire a short-term Criterion Channel account in order to access a number of screenings for the course. This course will be delivered asynchronously.
• EVALUATION: TBA
• TEXT: In addition to other course readings that will be provided on cuLearn, the required text is The Film Experience: An Introduction, 5th ed. by Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White.

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• PROFESSOR: Marc Furstenau
• DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to the main terms, concepts, and issues of Film Studies, considering film as an art and as entertainment; analysing the aesthetics of film form; and studying film as a social practice. While there is a historical dimension to the course, with films chosen from the entire 125-year history of the cinema, we do not follow a strictly historical chronology in the presentation of films or issues.
• EVALUATION: Students will be asked to write a series of short Formal Analyses of scenes selected from the assigned films, and/or an Essay on a film of their choice, and/or Exams testing knowledge of formal concepts. The specific combination of assignments is optional. All assignments will test your knowledge of information and concepts from the assigned textbook (see below). Full details on assignments and grading will be provided in the syllabus.
• FILMS: Students must acquire a short-term account  with The Criterion Channel(criterionchannel.com) in order to access the majority of screenings for the course. This course will be delivered asynchronously.
• TEXT: Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction. Fifth Edition. Boston and New York: Bedford and St. Martin’s, 2018. This is available from the Carleton University Bookstore, either as a paper copy, that will be sent to you by mail (so order early!), or as an eBook.

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• PROFESSOR: Papagena Robbins
• DESCRIPTION: Get your hankies out and feel free to purge your tears in the comfort of your own homes as we examine the intricacies of film genre and modality through the lens of the melodrama in this online summer course! Melodrama has long been dismissed for its association with the emotions, excess, woman’s films, and low-brow entertainment, but as we will see in this course, the melodrama offers unique insights into gender, class, nationalism, modernity, race, ethics, psychology and aesthetics. Whether we think of it as a genre, expressive mode, or ideological form, the melodrama at its best employs a variety of aesthetic conventions and stylistics to provide emotional resonance to moral and political issues. This course takes an international perspective focusing on, how melodrama deals with gender, race, and class; the queering of genre; the influence of Hollywood’s genre development on other national cinemas; and the effect of heightened audiovisual sensation on the cinematic experience.  This course will be run as a seminar, meaning that it will be discussion based rather than lecture based, and as such, it will have a synchronous live-stream meeting component during which time we will: discuss the readings and films; have group presentations; watch full films; and even have small group activities—just like a real classroom (as much as possible). Students will need to have working microphones and webcams to fully participate in this course. Students must acquire a short-term Criterion Channel account in order to access a number of screenings for the course.
• EVALUATION: The evaluation process will include participation/attendance, two mid-length papers, a group led discussion/presentation, and a final exam (subject to change).
• TEXT: In addition to other course readings that will be provided on cuLearn, the required text is, Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility by John Mercer available through the Carleton bookstore (please acquire this text prior to the start of class).

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• PROFESSOR: Louis Pelletier
• DESCRIPTION: This course offers a survey of world cinema since the end of the Second World War. We will examine how new approaches to film narration and aesthetics straying from the norms of classical cinema were influenced by phenomena such as the rise of national cinemas, the new wave movements of the 1960s and social movements, as well as by political and technological issues. Auteur theory and the canon will be approached from a critical perspective emphasizing the collective dimension of film production, issues of representation, and the contributions of women and marginalized groups. Postwar European modernist cinema, 1960s new waves, New Hollywood, documentary cinema, and the cinemas of Japan, the Chinese-speaking world, Iran and India will be among the topics covered.
• EVALUATION: TBA
• TEXT: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film History: An Introduction, Fourth Edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2018).

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