Topics in Film and Media Theory

This course presents a survey of "classical" and contemporary film and media theory. The contributions of the most important early theoreticians such as Eisenstein, Benjamin, Bazin, Arnheim, Merleau-Ponty, Bal¿zs, and Kracauer, as well as more recent theorists such as Metz, Mulvey, Deleuze, Barthes, Williams, Hall, and McLuhan will be reviewed and contextualized. Questions about the structure and functioning of the filmic and media text, the nature of media representation, and spectatorship raised by the various schools of thought, including phenomenology, Marxism, semiology, psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer theory will be of major concern. Attention will focus on the analysis of primary theoretical texts, although secondary texts as well as historical works and films and media that assist in contextualizing theory may be assigned as well.

030893