Faculty: Professor Hastie‡ (Chair, fall 2021); Associate Professor Rangan† (Chair, spring 2022); Assistant Professors Guilford and Levine; Visiting Five College Senior Lecturer Mellis*; Visiting Professor Sanders; Visiting Assistant Professor Montoya (fall 2021).
Contributing Faculty: Professors Brenneis, Couvares, Drabinski*, Engelhardt, Gewertz, Kimball, Lembo, Parham*, Rogowski, Sarat, Schroeder Rodriguez, Van Compernolle, and Woodson; Associate Professors Gilpin, Kunichika, Robinson, Shandilya, and Wolfson.
The Film and Media Studies Program situates the study and practice of the moving image in its aesthetic, technical, and socio-cultural dimensions within a wider history of media. The program integrates formal, historical and theoretical analysis with various forms of creative and production experience in its required core courses. In courses in Critical Studies and Production, we explore the practice of constructing moving images through considerations of narrative, non-narrative and experimental structures, camera motion, editing techniques, music and sound design, mise-en-scène, and digital technologies. The dual emphasis on critical and creative practices allow the historical, theoretical, compositional, and aesthetic issues to illuminate each other and thus to allow students to engage with both the depth and breadth of media production and analysis. The program interfaces with a variety of disciplines across the Liberal Arts spectrum, such as philosophy, social and literary theory, area studies, language study, visual culture, theater and dance, anthropology, computer science, and gender studies.
Major Program. The Film and Media Studies (FAMS) major requires four core courses, a minimum of four additional courses (FAMS electives) that reflect each student’s individual academic and creative interests, one-two 400-level seminars (see below) and a Capstone project. The FAMS program grants wide scope to students for creating an individualized program of study in consultation with their advisor in the major, but it is anchored by two foundations courses in Critical Media Studies (e.g. "Coming to Terms: Cinema," "Coming to Terms: Media," "Knowing Cinema," and "Knowing Television"), one foundations course in Production (a 200-level production course), and one 410-level course in Integrated Media Practices. Foundations courses in Critical Media Studies and Production will serve as the prerequisites for the Foundations in Integrated Media Practices, which FAMS majors should ideally complete by the end of their junior year. Majors will also be required to take at least one 400-level FAMS course in their junior or senior year. In addition, students will take at least four other courses as electives. For the Capstone Requirement, students will either produce a two-semester thesis or will take at least one additional 400-level FAMS course, and all seniors will complete a comprehensive exam in the form of a symposium in the Spring semester of their senior year.
* On leave 2021-22. †On leave fall semester 2021-22. ‡On leave spring semester 2021-22.