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.

• CAS CH 904: MA Research in Chemistry
  A written report at the end of each semester is required.
• CAS CI 101: History of Global Cinema 1: Origins through 1950s
  This course provides an overview of film history in a number of different national traditions, from the origins of film through the 1950s. It covers the emergence of the key international film movements, alongside the economic and historical conditions that inform them. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS CI 102: History of Global Cinema 2: 1960s to the Present
  This course provides an overview of film history in a number of different national traditions, from the 1960s to the present. It covers the emergence of the key international film movements, alongside the economic and historical conditions that inform them. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS CI 200: Introduction to Film & Media Aesthetics
  Introduction to fundamental concepts for the analysis/understanding of film and media. Key concepts of formal composition (e.g. editing, mise-en-sc?ne, cinematography, sound and more) over a diverse set of media texts. Foundational skills in analysis appropriate to film, television and moving-image media. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
• CAS CI 255: The Myth of the Family in Classic American Literature, Film, and Television
  Blood bonds, criminality, violence, and language as they emerge across American cultural forms. Works include novels by Twain, Faulkner, Morrison, and Junot D¿az; films such as The Godfather and Boys Don't Cry; serial television such as Breaking Bad and The Wire. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS CI 260: Modern Japanese Culture in Cinema (in English translation)
  Japanese film from the silent era to contemporary animation, with attention to the intersection of cinematic and cultural analysis and genres such as yakuza movies. Directors studied may include Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Miyazaki Hayao. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
• 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.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Historical Consciousness
• 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.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• 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.
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  • 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.
• 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.
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  • 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.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• 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 Spring 2023: East European Political Film. Focuses on the cinema of "the other Europe" from the 1950s onwards and the innovations it introduces to film as an artistic medium, as well as its subversive function in opposing various types of oppression. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
• 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
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., EN 120 or WR 100 or WR 120). - Topic for Fall 2024: Chantal Akerman. A survey of the work of acclaimed Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman from the perspective of global art cinema. Assigned films and readings cover a wide range of topics such as documentary aesthetics, queer theory, and feminist film theory. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Aesthetic Exploration.
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  • 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.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• 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.