Film and Media Studies

FMS 101: Introduction to Film Studies

This course provides an overview of film studies by focusing on three areas: history of film, production (the basic tools of film-making), and theory (the basic vocabulary of film analysis). Students develop visual literacy through engagement with the primary structures, methods, practitioners, history, ideas, and vocabularies of film studies.

FMS 140: Film History

This course provides a broad overview of the cinema from its beginnings to the present day, while introducing students to historically informed methods and arguments that have contributed to the shape and continuing development of film studies as a formal discipline. In addition to adopting a global perspective to explore the cinema's role as a powerful aesthetic, social, and cultural force, students examine key movements, conventions, practices, and periods that inform film history. Offered annually in the spring semester.

FMS 160: The Media Landscape

This course encourages students to critically assess and shape their personal relationship to the media landscape. Its premise is that we are all, to some extent, uninformed and uncritical consumers of media products, services and effects rather than conscientious and civically engaged users of them. In this spirit, this course is designed to give students a theoretical, as well as practical, experience with issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality as they manifest in mediated artifacts of popular culture. The course is taught from a media studies perspective where students gain skills in critical analysis and media literacy. Concepts of power, privilege, justice, representation, hegemony, consumption and resistance are woven throughout course readings, images, assignments and discussions. Offered twice annually. Also counts toward film studies concentration.

FMS 215: Topics: Genre

Hollywood and other popular cinemas around the world divide their film narratives into different genres like melodrama, horror, musicals, science fiction, film noir, and gangster cinema. Some of these genres stem from literature and theater, and most have subsequently influenced television, video games, and other media production. In this course students analyze the history and characteristics of one of these genres in detail or compare and contrast influential examples of genre production. May be repeated if topics are different. Offered alternate years in the fall semester beginning fall semester 2021-22.

FMS 220: Film and Media Production

This course introduces students to film and media production. The course rotates topics to accommodate various modes of production such as documentary, experimental, and narrative filmmaking. Students view and study film, learn the creative and technical skills associated with the course's focus, as well as participate in their own film and media productions. Offered annually.
Prerequisites: FILM 101 or MEDIA 160 recommended.

FMS 230: Media and the Environment (abroad)

This course will be taught off-campus, with one week at St. Olaf followed by three weeks in Iceland. Students study various media representations of nature, while specifically addressing the ways in which journalists, activists, filmmakers and artists have responded to global warming and climate change. Prior to departure students learn about documentary cinema and acquire introductory filmmaking experience. During their stay in Iceland, students attend lectures on media and climate change, discuss course topics with scholars and artists, and visit heterogeneous sites, including art museums, geothermal power plants and national parks. Course assignments include group presentations, a final exam, and a collaborative documentary filmmaking project. Offered periodically.

FMS 235: Topics: Authorship

For much of film history the film director has been considered to be an author not unlike a writer of a novel or composer of a symphony. In this course students closely analyze the authorship of influential film directors, while also critically evaluating the role of the director along with themany other artists and workers that contribute to the meaning and production of film. May be repeated if topics are different. Offered alternate years in the spring semester beginning spring semester 2021-22.

FMS 245: Topics: National and Transnational Film and Media

This course focuses on the film and/or media production of a particular nation, region, or economic and cultural partnership across borders. It gives students a historical overview of influential national and transnational cinemas, or other global media products. May be repeated if topics are different. Offered alternate years in the spring semester beginning spring semester 2021-22.

FMS 250: Video News Reporting

This course focuses on the practices, ethics and challenges of video journalism in a digital age. Students learn imaged-based journalism through academic analyses, review of stories reported by Twin Cities newsrooms, and hands-on production of multiple video broadcast and online news stories. Students acquire video shooting, editing and interviewing skills relevant to the workplace today. The course includes two trips to the Twin Cities to visit the studio and Capitol bureau of KARE 11, the NBC television affiliate in Minneapolis. Offered periodically.

FMS 260: Media and Screen Cultures

This course focuses on screen-based media, from television to fillm, social media platforms to video games, from theoretical and critical perspectives. Primary emphasis is on the diverse ways screen media production, distribution, and consumption inform contemporary issues in the public sphere. In particular, the course examines media discourses on identity, agency, and privacy, and how communication technologies, data aggregation, and targeted marketing help or hinder democracy and the dismantling of structural inequalities. Offered alternate years. Also counts toward management studies concentration.
Prerequisite: MEDIA 160 or permission of instructor.

FMS 265: Topics: Film and Media Modes

In this course, students learn about the history, theory, and practice of a specific film or medium mode. This can include such modes as documentary cinema, experimental film and media, animation, television, video games, or social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. May be repeated if topics are different. Offered alternate years in the fall semester beginning fall semester 2021-22.

FMS 270: Topics: Film and Media History

This course closely examines a specific period in the history of cinema or other media. Students study the relationship between film and media texts and their historical context and social environment. The course rotates topics to emphasize either an influential period (national or global) or historical movements. May be repeated if topics are different. Offered alternate years in the fall semester beginning fall semester 2021-22.

FMS 280: Film and Media Theory

This course is an introduction to the major figures, concepts, and debates in film and media theory (1915 to the present day). Although a historical framework informs the structure of this course, students are strongly encouraged to observe similarities and differences within the same schools of theory as well as across different theoretical models and periods. Topics of study include formative and realist film theory, psychoanalysis, semiotics, new and digital media, feminist media theory, and postmodernism. Offered annually in the spring semester beginning spring semester 2021-22.
Prerequisite: FILM 101 or permission of instructor.

FMS 295: Internship and Reflection Seminar

This seminar integrates the liberal arts with the experience of work and the search for a vocation or career. Course content will include both an off-campus internship and on-campus class sessions that connect academic theories/analyses of work with their particular internship experience. Students will also consider and articulate the value of the liberal arts for their pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life.

FMS 350: Topics in Film and Media Studies

This advanced course rotates between various topics in film that may include genres and styles, authorship, national and transnational cinemas, industrial history, and film's relationship to other art forms and popular culture at large. Students study films within a context that emphasizes specialized theoretical, cultural, or historical concerns and questions. May be repeated if topic is different. Offered annually in the spring semester.
Prerequisite: FILM 101.

FMS 360: Topics in Media

This seminar investigates critical and specialized issues in media from multiple and often competing perspectives. Topics change regularly and address a wide range of media-related concerns. Sample topics include "Media and the Environment," "Media and Religion," and "Media and Globalization.".