Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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CAS CI 263: Philosophy and Film
This class provides an introduction philosophical and aesthetic issues connected with film. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS CI 266: A Study of Italian Cinema from the 1940s to the Present
Films by De Sica, Fellini, Benigni, Sorrentino and others tell the story of social and cultural development during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS CI 268: Religion and Film
Religions and films are world-building engines. They create -- and re-create -- a visioning of society as a world of justice, of lived myth, of fantasy, of ideology: a world we may long to live in or a world we wish to avoid at all costs. This course explores such worlds by examining the ways in which religious beliefs, practices and people are portrayed in popular film from the 1960s to the present. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS CI 269: Representations of the Holocaust in Literature and Film
How can we understand the impact of the Holocaust and its ongoing legacies' Holocaust representation in literature, film and memorials, including discussions of bystander complicity and societal responsibilities, testimonial and fictive works by Wiesel and Levi, documentaries and feature films. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning. -
CAS CI 270: Israeli Culture through Film (in English translation)
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent) - Israeli society, from its origins to contemporary times, through the medium of film. Topics include immigration; war; the ongoing impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society; trials of women; war; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Introduction to film analysis and interpretive methods. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration. -
CAS CI 283: Arab Cultures Through Film (in English translation)
Explores Arab cultures with a focus on key historical and social issues through the lens of Arabic films, both as historical artifacts and artworks. Diverse cinematic works from Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and beyond are discussed and analyzed. No prior knowledge of the Arab world or Arabic is required. Effective Fall 2024 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS CI 320: Weimar Cinema (taught in English)
German silent and early sound films from Caligari to Hitler, viewed in the aesthetic context of contemporary and recent film theory and criticism and in the broader cultural context of the interwar Weimar Republic (1918--1933), with international points of comparison. Weekly screenings. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS CI 321: Introduction to Brazilian Cinema
An overview of Brazilian cinema in the 60s, 70s and 80s, its discourse on revolution and marginality, as well as its connection to artistic, musical, and literary movements. Focus on the work of avant-garde filmmakers and younger generations. Also includes attention to Cuban cinema. Taught in English. Also offered as CAS LP 360. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CAS CI 325: Tradition and Modernity in Iranian Film and Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - This course examines how competing notions of tradition and modernity are presented in Iranian cinema. Drawing on both classical and modern Persian literary works to draw out underlying connections between the readings and the films. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration. -
CAS CI 330: Film Genres & Movements
An intensive exploration of a particular cinematic genre or movement, paying special attention to how individual films respond to an existing traditions and to the historical and cultural contexts underpinning artistic change. How do genres grow and evolve across historical, cultural and institutional settings? How do particular cinematic movements respond to particular cultural challenges? Course content varies by semester. Topic for Fall 2025: Film Noir. A broad survey of one of the most stylish and influential genres. We watch important early examples of the genre before charting its baroque evolution into the late '40s and '50s and beyond, finally investigating the rise of international and contemporary neo-noir cinemas. Films by John Huston, Ida Lupino, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Jacques Tourneur, Carl Franklin, Howard Hawks, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Akira Kurosawa, among others. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS CI 351: Topics in Auteur Studies
May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Topic for Spring 2022: Kurosawa. In-depth study of the diverse films and thought of auteur Akira Kurosawa (1910- 1998). Considers filmmaking style and practices together with historical context. -
CAS CI 352: Auteur Filmmaking
Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., EN 120 or WR 100 or WR 120). - Topic for Spring 2025: Section A1: Céline Sciamma & Sébastian Lifshitz. This course centers on the fiction films of Céline Sciamma and the documentaries of Sébastien Lifshitz, two contemporary French auteurs who explore themes of childhood, female adolescence, gender identity, and LGBTQ representation. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Aesthetic Exploration. -
CAS CI 353: Stalin's Crimes: Gulag and Genocide
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar CAS WR 100 or 120 or equivalent. - History, poetry and prose written in the genocidal conditions of Stalinist Russia, when the revolutionary euphoria and artistic innovation of the 1920s came up against the political repression and violence of the modern totalitarian state. Readings and films from some of the greatest poets, directors and prose writers of the 20th century display the richness of modern Russian literature as well as the complex interplay of political power, cinema and the written word, of murderous history and the creative imagination, during the Ukraine famine-genocide and the gulags. Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS CI 354: Auteurs at Work
This course surveys the work of one or two auteurs, paying special attention to the aesthetic dimensions of their films. Alongside the study of films, students explore the work of auteurs by collaborating to make a short film. Topic for Fall 2025: Explores the work of Maya Deren, a filmmaker who serves as an exemplar of American Independent filmmaking. With special attention to questions of authorship, artistic control, budget constraints, alternative distribution networks, and aesthetic vision. Films by Deren, Lynch, Cocteau, Hammer, Spielberg, and others. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU HUB areas: Creativity/Innovation, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS CI 362: Africa on Screen
Discussion of African films in their social and historical contexts and specificities of production practices. Primary topics of interest include traditional values, practices and social change; education; popular culture and urban life; politics; migration; the youth; sexuality and gender relations. -
CAS CI 363: Screening Modern China (in English Translation)
Major Chinese films interpreted in light of modern Chinese history and culture. Focus on questions of national and cultural identity in films from the 1980s to the present day by directors from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In English. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CAS CI 365: Modern Korean Culture through Cinema (in English translation)
Introduction to Korean Cinema from the early 20th century to the present. Discussion and essays on ethics of representation, colonialism, wars, state violence against citizens, psychological violence, sexual violence. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking. -
CAS CI 367: Studies in Non-Cinematic Media
This course covers a range of aesthetic and cultural issues related to non- cinematic media, encompassing the study of photography, television, video art, video and online gaming, new media and more. Topics vary by semester. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS CI 369: Greek Tragedy and Film
Explores Greek tragic myth's afterlife, both directly and obliquely, in cinema and in the modern literature spawning cinema: how certain Greek tragic myths have come to life as film and how "non-mythic" stories have acquired a mythic power in literary and cinematic form. All texts in translation. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking. -
CAS CI 378: Modern Greek Culture and Film
Introduction to Greek cultural, social, historical, political, economic, and religious issues through a range of films that have reflected and shaped contemporary Greek society. Entertainment, education, popular culture, propaganda, and identity- and nation-building practices as reflected in Greek cinema. Also offered as CAS CG 357. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
