ENGL 681-01: Introduction to Film Theory

Section Description:

Film theory might best be described as an interdisciplinary set of interpretive frameworks that all try to understand what motion pictures are, how they work, and how they make us feel. This set is constantly growing and has no clear boundaries. It does have a history, however, and methodological roots in textual analysis, historicism, analytical and continental philosophy, even cognitive science. This course will introduce you to these and other approaches to studying motion pictures, including ontology, phenomenology, semiotics, materialism, psychoanalysis, feminist and queer theory, and genre theory. It will explore how film theory informs readings of individual films as well as electronic media and other genres. Ultimately, “Introduction to Film Theory” is designed to ground you in a discipline and show how that discipline emerges from and gives back to other fields of the humanities and social sciences.