Interested in learning more about the Cinema Studies major?

Explore CINE's spring term CORE ED courses below.
Cinema Studies offers many courses that are open to all majors and satisfy Core Ed requirements.

Already a Cinema Studies major?

Learn more about the interesting TOPICS courses offered spring term below.
Visit the course list page for the complete list of spring courses and how they satisfy the major.

Priority registration begins February 21, 2022

CINE 230: Remix Cultures >1 (4 credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  André Sirois

In "Remix Cultures," students learn the historical, practical, and critical views of "intellectual property" (IP) by analyzing everything from the UO mascot to Jay-Z. The course highlights how “ideas” are part of a remix continuum: new ideas often remix the great ideas that preceded them and will themselves be remixed in the future. Students will deconstruct the relationship between politics and economics and interrogate the everyday ways that their lives are governed by (and often break) IP laws. As a group-satisfying Arts and Letters course, Remix Cultures provides students with a broad yet fundamental knowledge of how "IP" and "innovation" impact their lives: students of all majors engage with intellectual properties daily and may seek professions in fields that valorize intellectual property. By asking all students to actively and critically engage consumer media culture as intellectual property, the course provides a better understanding of how collaborative efforts are governed by laws that typically value and reward a singular author/genius. 

CINE 267: History of Motion Picture III: From 1960s to the Present >1 (4 credits)
ONLINE
Instructor:  Sangita Gopal

CINE 267 is the third in a three-part chronological survey of the evolution of cinema as an institution and as an art form from its origin, covers the time period from the "end" of the studio system in the 1960s to the present day. It may be taken individually or as part of a series (with CINE 265 and 266) designed to provide a broad introduction to interpretive, theoretical, and institutional issues central to the study of film and media. The aim of the course is to develop interpretive and critical skills relevant to the study of film by examining the history of both Hollywood and world cinema. Like the other two courses in the series, CINE 267 enables students to engage with major issues within the field, including star studies, the film industry, and censorship and satisfies the university's Group Requirement in the Arts and Letters category. The courses in motion picture history, CINE 265, 266, and 267, may be taken individually or as parts of an integrated series. Previously taught as ENG 267; not repeatable.

CINE 268: US Television History (4 credits) >1
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  Erin Hanna

This Arts & Letters course analyzes the history of television, spanning from its roots in radio broadcasting to the latest developments in digital television. To assess the many changes across this historical period, the course addresses why the U.S. television industry developed as a commercial medium (compared to television industries across the globe), how television programming has both reflected and influenced cultural ideologies through the decades, and how historical patterns of television consumption have shifted due to new technologies and social changes. By studying the historical development of television and assessing the industrial, technological, political, aesthetic and cultural systems out of which they emerged, this course helps you better understand the catalysts responsible for shaping this highly influential medium into what you view today. In this process, students will gain a basic understanding of various approaches used to analyze television history, including industrial history, technological history, formal history, reception history, and social/cultural history. 

CINE 335: Exhibition & Audiences (4 credits) >1
Monday/Wednesday, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructors:  Michael Aronson and Elizabeth Peterson

This course explores how audiences make sense of movies—particularly in relation to the way that movies are shown or exhibited—and how we historically have consumed movies in relation to their surrounding contexts, including the environment in which we see a film (at a movie theater, in a classroom, at home, or on an airplane with an iPad). Both films and how they’re exhibited have changed over the history of cinema; how and where we watch movies has also affected our interpretations of films over time. We will explore why this is and how it relates to other factors in a film’s reception—social class, gender, race, politics, national identity, and other cultural values audiences might hold. Within this context, we will focus specifically on how this has played out in Oregon’s towns and cities to examine how local film histories align and diverge from dominant histories of American cinema.

CINE 340: Production Studies (4 credits) >1
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  Daniel Steinhart

This course examines the development of production practices and the lived realities of film and television production workers. Our particular focus is not on the production of culture but rather on the culture of production and the ways that production work itself is a meaningful cultural practice. Special emphasis will be placed on analyzing the imagery and rhetoric of production found in making-of documentaries and trade stories. Using various case studies, students will consider not only “above-the-line” personnel, namely film directors and TV showrunners, but also "below-the-line" workers, such as casting agents and camera crews. Throughout, we will take up a range of issues that impact production work, including labor, gender, craft practices, and technological change.

CINE 365: Digital Cinema (4 credits) >1
Monday/Wednesday, 2:00-3:50 p.m.
Instructor:  HyeRyoung Ok

What is cinema in digital age? This class examines the impact of digital media technologies on diverse dimensions of cinematic experience encompassing the production, delivery, and reception. Through the readings and screenings, we will explore the way in which cinema as cultural institution has both shaped and reflected the formal and institutional development of diverse digital media technologies – computer-generated imagery, digital video, games, DVDs, portable screen interfaces, and social media, etc. Themes of the class will include but are not limited to: discourse of digitality, digital production/reception, digital aesthetics, digital visual effects and spectacle, media convergence, expanded cinema and digital arts, web/mobile cinemas and participatory digital culture.

CINE 381M*: Film, Media & Culture >1 >GP >IP (4 credits)
Tuesday/Thursday, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Quinn Miller

This course studies works of film and media as aesthetic objects that engage with communities identified by class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It considers both the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on media and filmmaking practices and modes of reception that promote cultural pluralism and tolerance. It historicizes traditions of representation in film and media and analyzes works of contemporary film and media to explore the impact and evolution of these practices. Classroom discussion will be organized around course readings, screenings and publicity (interviews, trailers, etc). Assignments will supplement these discussions by providing opportunities to develop critical /analytical /evaluative dialogues and essays about cinematic representation. CINE 381M satisfies the Arts and Letters group requirement by actively engaging students in the ways the discipline of film and media studies has been shaped by the study of a broad range of identity categories, including gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. By requiring students to analyze and interpret cinematic representation from these perspectives, the course will promote an understanding of film as an art form that exists in relation to its various social contexts. CINE 381M also satisfies the Identity, Pluralism, and Tolerance multicultural requirement by enabling students to develop scholarly insight into the construction of collective identities in the mass media forms of film and television. It will study the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on mainstream media. Students will study the ways representational conventions, such as stereotypes, have resulted from filmmaking traditions that have excluded voices from varying social and cultural standpoints. The course will also consider filmmaking practices and modes of reception that promote cultural pluralism and tolerance.

CINE 440: Topic: Southeast Asian Cinema >GP >IC (4 credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Ari Purnama

This course is a survey of the cinematic arts from film producing countries in Southeast Asia. You will be introduced to the themes, narratives, styles, and popular genres explored by filmmakers in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The course will do so in three ways: Firstly, by showing you a selection of films made within a spectrum of production and distribution context—from the big-budget studio-financed movies to independently produced festival films; secondly, by showcasing the works of women and LGBTQ filmmakers; thirdly, by making you engaged with the scholarly literature produced in the field of Southeast Asian cinema studies. While the course title includes the label "Southeast Asia," we will examine the concept of regional cinema through our discussion of the films and readings with the goal for us to be able to answer the question: Is there such a thing as Southeast Asian cinema? All films will have English subtitles. No specific prior knowledge of cultures, languages, and countries in Southeast Asia or prerequisite is required.

CINE 399: Sp St Third Cinema (4 credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Allison McGuffie

This course introduces students to the history and theory of Third Cinema, a radical, revolutionary film practice including New Latin American Cinema movements of the 1960s and 70s, politically engaged African cinema, and affiliated films from South and Southeast Asia. The course will be structured around watching and discussing founding films of Third Cinema, such as Death of a Bureaucrat (Cuba), Hour of the Furnaces (Argentina), and Black Girl (Senegal), as well as more recent works in the spirit of Third Cinema, including City of God (Brazil). Anyone interested in expanding their filmmaking practice or understanding culture through cinema will enjoy learning about the important, exciting innovations of Third Cinema issues and aesthetics. No prior knowledge of the subject is expected.

CINE 410: Warner Bros Studios (4 credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 4:00-5:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Michael Aronson

This course looks at the history of the American film industry not just as a sum of its products (films designed for mass consumption) but as a complex business and entertainment system that produces complex cultural products. This course is about the Hollywood film and its relationship to the American film industry, and about the ways in which Hollywood has historically responded to conditions and challenges, whether social, industrial, legal or technological. In attempt to narrow our field of study, we will focus on the development and history of the Warner Brothers Studio, its producers, directors, stars and genres, particularly from the 1920s until the late 1960s. Independent primary research will be required for successful completion of the course.

CINE 410: Cinematography History/Theory (4 credits)
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  Michael Aronson

Vittorio Storaro, one of history’s great cinematographers, once defined cinematography as ‘...writing with light in movement. Cinematographers,’ he went on to say, ‘are authors of photography, not directors of photography. We are not merely using technology to tell someone else’s though, because we are also using our own emotion, our culture, and our inner being.’ For Storaro and many others, cinematography is an expressive art. This admittedly romantic definition of cinematography, must be contextualized as it is, after all, an industrial craft, made within a system based on hierarchy, mass-production, and the commercial imperative. Keeping both sides of cinematography in mind, this course will explore the story of cinematography in American cinema, working out how a complex art and craft changed across the decades, from hand-cranked cameras to digital work flows. The course will be a bit of a theory & practice mashup, utilizing both historical research and aesthetic analysis, as well as some low-fi creative exercises and the occasional industry guest speaker on all things camera and lighting.

CINE 490: Topic: Transnational Film Genres (4 credits)
Tuesday, 4:00-7:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Dong Hoon Kim

Genres are constantly changing, whether it is to adapt, understand or challenge new social and political environments. Genre films have been important cultural texts that continually mediate complicated relations of power. With all of this in mind, what can we gain by thinking of genre not just in terms of conventions and expectations, but in relation to national context and transnational influences?

Though perceived as "the most American film genre," if we follow the paths of the Western genre starting in the United States, it will lead us to Italy, to Japan, to India, to Mexico, and to East Germany. The recent trend of remaking Asian melodramas, gangster films and horror movies in Hollywood obviously reverses the presumed flow of influence from Hollywood to other national and regional cinemas. This course examines the transnational dissemination of genre films across nations and explores the ways in which genre conventions are constituted, redefined and transformed within these processes of global exchange.

In this course, we will primarily consider westerns and then melodramas that have traditionally been coded as a “female” genre (to the “male” western). In addition to exploring the formal and industrial elements of cinema across nations, the analysis of westerns and melodramas will lead us to interrogate cinematic and cultural constructions of violence, family, gender, sexuality, and territory across seemingly opposed genres.

CINE 490: Topic: Global Auteurs (4 credits)
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  Ahmad Nadalizadeh

Course description forthcoming.