37 courses with the subject FMST, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
FMST 200Introduction to Film and Media Studies1.00
From the films we watch to the personal profiles we maintain online, media saturates our lives. Film and mass media can be powerful determinants of ideology, identity, and historical consciousness. This course is a historical survey of media technologies and environments, combining course readings with a required weekly film screening. The theoretical concepts introduced in this course enable students to critically approach the visual culture around them: just how immersed are we in the virtual, and what are the strategies for engaging with or disengaging from virtual worlds? Students learn to respond to film and media as proactive, critical, and articulate viewers. Students also acquire the vocabulary, conceptual strategies, and interpretive skills necessary to closely analyze the form and content of film and media, as well as the ability to set their own relation to the ideologies all representations convey. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Explores the production and reception of film in a global context, as well as the various ways individuals and communities around the world create and receive film. Students explore the concept of "national cinema," the interplay of local aesthetic traditions and transnational industrial and artistic practices, the role of cinema in diasporic communities, and the impact of global capitalism on film production, distribution, and exhibition. Films depicting immigration, exile, the refugee, insider/outsider status, and other modes of geographic movement are explored. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Required corequisite to FMST 210. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Regulating and being regulated by a variety of information flows on a daily basis from SMS texts, snapchats, and tweets, to live news feeds, corporate data transfers, and government communiques. We increasingly experience our private and public lives as a hypermediated encounter with the world at large. What impact do these media flows have on our experiences of the local and the global? Simultaneously, how should we understand contemporary mass media themselves as "global"? Have transformations in print, broadcast, and digital media fundamentally altered how we think of the near and the far, the familiar and the foreign, the national and the transnational, the West and the non-West? This course will address these questions through the two structuring notions of the "flow" and the "counter-flow," and analyze the role that media play as both a unifying and a divisive agent, consolidating identities and nationalisms in some instances, and de- territorializing the same in others.
Required corequisite to FMST 212. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
FMST 214Playful Polemics: Video Game Theory, History, and Methods1.0
Provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of video games. Each week, students play one or more assigned games and complete readings drawn from a variety of fields including media studies, race, gender and sexuality studies, and computer science. Through this approach, students develop a sophisticated critical vocabulary that allows them to analyze the formal and genre characteristics of video games, how they reflect and engage with contemporary sociopolitical concerns, and how they have circulated globally and historically. Course assignments include a series of short in-class exercises with different modes of writing and creative practice, a Twine-based midterm analysis of the formal and genre features of the game of your choice, and a final group research project where students collaboratively produce a game design document, a script, and a critical intervention. All levels of experience with gaming, theory, and computation are welcome and encouraged (even if any of this is brand new, just bring your excitement and willingness to try new things). Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice & Interpretation Core Component: None
An introduction to major works of Italian cinema from the silent era to contemporary productions. Students will watch and discuss groundbreaking films by Italian directors such as Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Wertmüller, Benigni, and others. Places Italian cinema within the context of European art cinema and film theory, and focuses on the ways these films represent and challenge Italian history, culture, and identity. It emphasizes the study of cinematic analysis and filmmaking techniques, as well as the historical and cultural situation in Italy from the 1920s to the present. Students are required to attend weekly screenings in addition to regular class meetings. Taught in English, with the option of a discussion group in
Required corequisite to FMST 224 Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Approaches the study of rhetoric by focusing on the relationship between text and image. How does the combination of verbal and visual elements communicate different arguments to different audiences? How do verbal/visual texts reflect or even create cultural identities, norms, values, and practices? With the goal of becoming effective rhetorical critics, as well as incisive consumers and producers of visual culture, students both study and create a variety of visual texts. Crosslisted: WRIT 225 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None
Examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer film cultures from transnational and global perspectives. Courses on LGBTQ cinema most often focus on North America and Western Europe, well- known for their prolific output of gay, lesbian, and transgender film and media. Less frequently included are the wide range of films produced (since the 1980s and 1990s) from India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Egypt, Tunisia, Guinea, Uganda, Israel, and Russia. Analyzing these films alongside contemporary theoretical discussions of gender and sexuality, students explore how LGBTQ concerns from non-Western countries continue to test the possibilities of film and media aesthetics and politics, and bring the cinematic form in dialogue with the complexities and geopolitics of gender and sexuality.
Required corequisite to FMST 230. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
FMST 235Independent Film Production (Study Group)1.00
Introduces students to the theory and practice of independent filmmaking. Students become familiar with the fundamentals of media production, including time-based visual storytelling; digital video and audio technologies; and image composition and framing. Simultaneously, students explore the history of independent film production in the United States and particularly in New York City, as well as the narrative, stylistic, industrial, and cultural aspects of contemporary U.S. independent film. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None
Focuses on the ways that comics - often defined as the interplay of words and images - convey specific messages, whether instructional, narrative, persuasive, or other. Close analyses draw on principles of visual rhetoric, comics scholarship, photography, and related disciplines. Readings cover the theory, history, terminology, and genres of graphic narratives. Crosslisted: WRIT 270 Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Introduces students to the history of cinema and the major film theories from the 20th century to present. Students engage with all aspects of filmmaking, acquiring the appropriate cinematic language and theoretical framework to discuss and write about film. Emphasis is on the development of film analysis and critical visual thinking. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges and The Process of Writing Core Component: None Formerly: ARTS/ARTH 287
Required corequisite to FMST 287 Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
FMST 288New Media: History and Theory from Netflix to VR1.0
Focusing on 21st century media production and consumption, students explore the impact of digital technologies on film, television, and social media. In addition to viewing a wide range of recent and contemporary works, from web documentaries to interactive films and Virtual Reality, "New Media" engages more directly and materially with contemporary moving images, industries, and infrastructures. The course addresses key issues in recent film and media theory by historicizing and contextualizing recent debates surrounding movie-going, connected viewing, interactivity, and streaming. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Required corequisite to FMST 288. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty. Credits: variable Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
FMST 303The Rhetoric of Data Visualization & Infographics1.0
Our world is increasingly visual; more and more of the information we consume and produce is presented in images. This course focuses on the visual presentation of numerical information - everything from box-and- whisker plots to flashy infographics - and specifically how such information can effectively persuade its readers. Emphasis will be on both analyzing and making visualizations; there will be no attention to data collection or analysis. Students can expect to improve their visual literacy skills; no facility with statistics or software packages is required. Crosslisted: WRIT 303 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Explores the history and critical debates surrounding representations of the Holocaust in film and media across a diverse range of national and historical contexts and time periods. Considers the prospects of depicting the Holocaust in a period marked by a decline in the numbers of living historical witnesses and survivors, but a proliferation of historical and artistic renderings of their experiences. Central issues pertain
Surveys the traditions of personal, experimental, ethnographic, and political documentary filmmaking. This overview of the history and aesthetics of documentary examines its origins, forms, goals, and contemporary styles while at the same time problematizing its canonical readings and reception. Issues covered include documentary styles, documentary representation of history and memory, the filmmaker's relationship to the subject and the viewer, and the impact of technology on documentary techniques. Particular attention is paid to the influence that certain social and political movements have had on documentaries and filmmakers. A required film series accompanying the class includes works by directors such as Flaherty, Riefenstahl, Wiseman, Rouch, Morris, Moffatt, and many others. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Required corequisite to FMST 333. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Explores the various ways in which sound and music have functioned in visual and sonic media. Tracing the history of sound(ing) media from the advent of the phonograph and the rise of radio through silent film and classical Hollywood cinema, to the concept album and music on television, and finally, to the turn to the digital and sound "in the cloud," students examine a series of musical media "objects" and the theory, rhetoric, and practice that has surrounded them. Particular attention will be devoted to the integration of film, music, and media industries and the ways in which music and sound work with other elements of film and media to reflect and construct social and cultural identities. Through readings, screenings, and written assignments, students acquire the tools and language to analyze and discuss the complex ways in which music, film, and media interact. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Required corequisite to FMST 340. Credits: 0.00 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
FMST 350Hollywood and the World: Performing Gender and Sexuality Onscreen
Explores the construction and performance of gender and sexuality in and through Hollywood film. Using a variety of critical approaches, the class examines the various ways in which gender and sexual identities are
Algorithms, a systematic way to perform a task in a finite number of steps, existed long before the computer was invented. In the digital age, algorithms are chains of actions or steps that define how software will perform and react. As such they condition, shape, and transform the daily lives of billions. They help shift political opinions and shape cultural tastes. However, the logic on which algorithmic systems are based and the infrastructures that sustain them are still largely unknown to their users (and, increasingly, to their developers). Students will explore several case studies – from Netflix's recommendation system to voice assistants – in order to demystify the logic of algorithms and map the understudied ways in which they paradoxically decrease diversity of tastes, opinions, and experiences despite the techno-utopian promise of endless choice. This process of "un-black boxing" will emphasize "the implantation gap" in algorithmic systems and the ways in which they give birth to new systems of control, surveillance, and biopower. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
FMST 364Desiring Machines: AI and Race in Contemporary Media
What distinguishes human beings from machines? Can a machine become human? Artificial intelligence is a cross-disciplinary field that seeks to imagine and develop machines able to reproduce, automate, and exceed the cognitive and sensorial capabilities of biological organisms. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, our understanding of these machines has served as a cipher for what it means to be human, and, more so, for who counts as human and who does not. Depictions of AI in movies and video games draw on long histories of racialization that frame particular populations as more or less human, more or less expendable, and more or less deserving of rights, opportunities, and ownership of their own bodies. Students in this course will trace the conceptual genealogies of AI, and investigate how our collective representations of AI illuminate and contribute to the production of race in contemporary America. Course texts will be drawn from diverse media including film, video games, literature, and generative AI such as ChatGPT. Course assignments will include speculative design projects that ask students to engage with course concepts, objects and questions via the media of their choice (e.g. visual art, coding, creative writing,
Focuses on the ways that comics - often defined as the interplay of words and images - convey specific messages, whether instructional, narrative, persuasive, or other. Close analyses draw on principles of visual rhetoric, comics scholarship, photography, and related disciplines. Readings cover the theory, history, terminology, and genres of graphic narratives. Crosslisted: WRIT 371 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None Formerly: FMST 270
Offers an advanced level study of a specific and narrowed field within the discipline of film and media studies. Each year, students focus on topics that reflect the breadth of film and media studies at Colgate. Faculty teach in the area of their scholarly expertise on a rotating basis. Focus may be on an in-depth study of a filmmaker, or a school of film, or genre, or focus on an advanced study of the history and theory of television or media, among other things. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None Formerly: Formerly FMST 400
Required corequisite to FMST Credits: 0 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Examines a constellation of debates, topics, and methods in film and media studies. Emphasis is placed on close analysis of media objects, critical evaluation of contemporary film and media theory and methodologies, and the application of interdisciplinary approaches. Topics for consideration might include: modernity and mass culture; media aesthetics, politics, and power; film and media historiography; spectatorship practices; media and identity; film and the digital; media installations and site specificity; and spectacle and surveillance. Major/Minor Restrictions: Only Film & Media Studies Majors Class Restriction: Only Senior Restrictions: or major override required Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty. Credits: variable Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
