56 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 001Critical Approaches to Media1
In this course, students are presented with forms and histories of film and other moving-image media, as well as key concepts, theories, and methods in the discipline of film and media studies. In discussions and group work, we investigate how audiovisual media construct meaning, explore genre formats and the role of authorship and collaboration, and discover through case studies how media are always a product of and a reflection on their time as much as they are teaching us to (un)see structures of power. Emphasis is on developing critical viewing, writing, research, and multimedia authoring skills. Required weekly evening screenings of works from diverse periods, countries, and traditions. FMST 001 is the prerequisite for most other FMST classes. Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Simon and Almeida. Fall 2027 Staff.
This course introduces students to the expressive possibilities and rigors of the film medium while offering a sound technical foundation in digital production and post-production. We will explore documentary, experimental, and narrative approaches and also consider the opportunities and limitations-conceptual, practical and aesthetic- of exhibiting work through different venues and platforms. Emphasis will be on using the formal and conceptual palette introduced in the course to develop one’s own artistic vision. Coursework includes short assignments, readings, discussions, screenings, and a final project.
FMST 001 or Instructor Permission. Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Visiting Assistant Professor, Charlotte Glynn. Spring 2028 Evans. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 004Integrated Media Design for Live Performance1
Cross-listed with THEA 004D The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the application of various visual technologies in live theater and dance performance. Discussion of the historical and theoretical context of contemporary mixed-media performance will be combined with an orientation to the available technologies found at Swarthmore and beyond. The class will include the conceptualization and preparation of a series of individual studio projects. The course is designed to serve all students regardless of prior experience in theater production. Fulfills a general requirement for all theater majors and minors. 1 credit. Eligible for THEA
FMST 005First-Year Seminar: Special Effects and Film Spectacle1
Focusing on the history and theory of spectacular media culture with an emphasis on visual effects and other forms of behind-the-scenes industrial knowledge, this class introduces students to the basics of studying and writing about spectacle in film, television, and digital entertainment, exploring questions such as the relationship between style and technology; formal and narrative principles of “showstoppers” such as musical numbers and fight scenes; and issues of realism and illusion, visual pleasure, sensory immersion, capitalism, cultural worth, and ideology. Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit.
FMST 006First-Year Seminar: The Astronomical Imaginary1
From movies and TV shows taking place in farflung galaxies to interactive space sims and phone apps that label the night sky in real time, outer space has long been both a favored subject of representation and active site of mediation. This first-year seminar examines depictions of outer space in film, TV, and video games to chart a history of off-planet “travel” through visualization technologies and practices. Our survey of outer-space media will complicate the boundary between science and fiction–the “observed” and the “imagined”–to ask how these images reflect and refract astrophysical knowledge, promote national ideologies, and shape conceptions of life on Earth and human destiny. Required weekly readings and screenings. Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Rehak.
FMST 009First-Year Seminar: Women and Popular Culture1
This course looks at a range of genres associated with female audiences in the US since the late 19th century across print, film, television, and new media. These include sentimental novels, gothic romances, magazines, “women’s pictures,” soaps, chick flicks, fanfic and Tumblr. What is the relation between mass culture aimed at women, cultural production by women, and feminist politics and critique? How do race, class, gender identity, and sexuality intersect with gendered genre conventions, discourses of authorship and critical evaluation, and the paradoxes of popular cultural pleasures? Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for DGHU, GSST
This course is an advanced filmmaking workshop for students with prior production experience. Through practical workshops in pre-production, sound production, cinematography, and editing, students advance their technical, aesthetic, and storytelling skills beyond the fundamentals. Through reading, discussion, and exposure to a variety of creative practices within film and video, the course promotes a critical understanding of these media. Production coursework includes collaborative exercises and the completion of a short film-documentary, narrative, or experimental culminating in a final project screening. This course is designed to help students develop their voice as filmmakers through the creation of high-quality works and is strongly recommended for students interested in producing a senior film project.
FMST 001 and FMST 002 or equivalent production experience with instructor’s approval. Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Visiting Assistant Professor, Charlotte Glynn. Fall 2027 Evans. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 013(Auto)biography and the Archive: Digital Production Workshop1
How have filmmakers used the camera to investigate their own life experiences, incorporating issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, geography, politics, and socioeconomic status? How do filmmakers turn to historical precursors, both known and unknown, to make deeply personal work? This class expands the boundaries of what we think of as “personal” filmmaking, looking at its history in fiction, documentary, experimental and hybrid works. We will explore the ways in which the archive intersects with (auto) biography–how empathy for stories filmmakers find in the ever expanding public archive of images affects the creative process. Course work includes readings by filmmakers and theorists, exercises, discussions with guest filmmakers, and a final 3-10 minute creative project. Prerequisite FMST 001 or instructor’s approval. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST.
(Cross-listed as ENGL 070S ) This course introduces students to the fundamentals of screenwriting while enabling them to explore their unique sensibility as writers. We consider how screenplays differ from other dramatic forms and understand what makes good cinematic storytelling. By looking at short and feature-length scripts and films, we examine issues of structure, character development, effective use of dramatic tension and dialogue, tone, and theme. Through in-class exercises and discussions, students flesh out their ideas and grapple with their writing in a supportive workshop atmosphere. Coursework includes screenings, short assignments, and the completion of several drafts of a short screenplay. No previous writing experience required. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for ENGL. Fall 2026. Visiting Assistant Professor, Charlotte Glynn. Spring 2027. Visiting Assistant Professor, Charlotte Glynn. Fall 2027 Evans. Spring 2028 Evans.
This course focuses on the importance of the relationship between the director and the actor and the use of improvisation in rehearsal and production to create more powerful performances for film and television. Texts and films examined in the first half of the course will include THE IMPROVISED PLAY: THE WORK OF MIKE LEIGH by Paul Clements, DIRECTING ACTORS by Judith Weston, THE COOL WORLD by Shirley Clarke, VERA DRAKE by Mike Leigh and OLD CATS by Sebastian Silva. The second half of the semester will include in-class exercises, open rehearsals with professional actors and individual student films that put some of the examined techniques into practice. The course will also include special workshops and Q&A’s with guest filmmakers.
FMST 001 and FMST 002 or equivalent production experience from a film/video production course in the TriCo with a working knowledge of the Premiere Pro Editing software is required for this course with instructor’s approval. Humanities 1 credit. Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 019Trans Lifeworlds in a Virtual Age: Intimate Media and Desiring Spectators1
Cross-listed with GSST 021 How do trans experiences shape the meaning of media? This seminar explores how trans-at the intersection of collective social possibility and individual embodiment-radically changes our relationships with technology. Paying particular attention to the role of spectatorial counterpublics as they emerge through histories of minoritarian performance forms and media technologies of the 20 th and 21 st centuries, we’ll explore topics like queer social dance, home video archives, somatechnologies, vlog culture, lockdown media, and queer experimental film. Under special circumstances particularly well-prepared freshmen can request instructor permission to take course. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST
Film critic André Bazin’s famous question, “What is cinema?,” gained new relevance with the advent of digital media. This course introduces classical film theory (theories of modernity and perception, montage, realism), contemporary film theory (theories of film language, ideology, the cinematic apparatus, and spectatorship), approaches that cut across media (authorship, genre, stardom, semiotics, narratology, feminism, production and reception studies, cognitivism), and theorizations of new media. Through readings and weekly screenings, we explore the significance of film and other media in shaping and expressing our identities and cultural experiences. Strongly recommended for FMST majors and minors.
FMST 001 . Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for INTP Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 021American Narrative Cinema1
(Cross-listed as ENGL 087 ) This course surveys U.S. narrative film history with an emphasis on the Hollywood studio era. We consider how genres such as the western, the melodrama, and film noir express aspirations and anxieties about race, gender, class and ethnicity in the United States. Film is understood as narrative form, audiovisual medium, industrial product, and social practice. Classical Hollywood is approached as a national cinema, illuminated by attention to independent narrative traditions (“race movies,” New Queer Cinema). Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for ENGL
This course explores the first decades of film history in the context of global modernity and artistic modernism. In form and content, silent-era cinema functioned as both a vector and a reflection of the transformative subjective and social experiences of modernity. Urbanization, immigration, consumerism, and women’s participation in the labor force were refracted in silent movie genres and stars. We will pay special attention to cinema’s internationalism before the introduction of synchronized sound, looking at film culture and national film stars in Asia as well as the U.S. and Europe. Field trips and guests will address key topics of film historiography including archives and preservation and film music. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for FMST
Contextualizing a range of documentary practices within the history of nonfiction film and television and in the landscape of contemporary media culture, this course explores the aesthetic and rhetorical strategies of documentary form. Topics include: activist media; the essay film; critical and sensory ethnographic film; reenactment; television documentary; and witnessing. Humanities. Eligible for FMST
This course introduces students to major trends in critical thought regarding electronic media, including the rise of broadcast television, recent developments in narrowcast or niche programming and distribution, and the relationship among media industries, advertisers, and audiences. Special attention will be given to probing and historicizing the formal concepts of broadcast and digital TV, examining our ongoing cultural adaptation to emerging screen technologies and their attendant narrative and audiovisual forms. Coursework includes weekly blogging, one analytical paper, presentations, and the production of a creative TV-related project. Required of majors for classes 2024 and after.
FMST 001 Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-Core. Spring 2027. Simon. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 026Popular Music and Media1
(Cross-listed as GMST 026 / MUSI 005E / LITR 026 ) What do classical music, teenie bop, soul, battle rap, and jazz have in common? Philadelphia. This team-taught interdisciplinary course investigates the histories, structures and cultural connections between popular music and other media in the city of Philadelphia. What links sound, image, and place? How do musical expressions and genres interact with urban life at specific junctures in Philadelphia history? How do modes of production and exhibition formats (radio vs. television, club v.s stadium) along with distribution venues (record store vs. Spotify) engage with genre, gender, and race configurations? What lies at the intersection of regional, national, and global fan cultures? How does celebrity culture then and now impact what is popular and how does it affect Philadelphia’s music industry and vice versa? Providing a grounding in music and media history and theory, we will research and analyze mainstream and independent Philadelphia-specific case studies in radio, film, theater, television and social media in order to better understand and engage with the complex webs that characterize contemporary media, its production, and its consumption. Student projects will explore the intersections and interactions between individuals, ethnic and racial groups, established and new Philadelphians, city government, region, empire, and nation that have and continue to shape Philadelphia through the music and media created here. This course will be taught in Philadelphia. Core class in the Tri-Co Philly Program . Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies
FMST 031Archival Practices in Documentary: From Film to Expanded Forms1
This seminar examines contemporary nonfiction practices grounded in archival research and long-form artistic inquiry. Focusing on projects that unfold across films, installations, performances, and other expanded formats, we will consider how artists mobilize audiovisual archives to construct historical narratives, activate suppressed histories, and reshape documentary form. Topics include the politics of preservation and erasure, archival absence, reenactment, essayistic form, and the transformation of research into aesthetic structure. Alongside close analysis of international works and key texts in film, media, and memory studies, the course introduces the practical workflow of archival research in documentary production. Students will develop critical and practical frameworks for understanding how archival materials move from repository to screen or exhibition space, including locating and accessing archives, evaluating materials, negotiating rights and licensing, budgeting and financing archival projects, and assessing the ethical and political stakes of reuse and circulation. Assignments include analytical writing and a final research or creative project engaging archival material in a chosen medium. Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Visiting Cornell Professor, Mila Turajlić.
FMST 032The Personal is Political: Filming the Documentary Encounter1
This production course explores the documentary encounter as a space of exchange where personal experience and political consciousness intersect. Beginning with the filmed interview and expanding outward, we will examine how positioning, listening, and presence shape what unfolds in front of the camera. What does it mean to position oneself ethically and politically in relation to another person’s story? How does the camera transform conversation into an event? Over the semester, students will acquire foundational skills in camera, sound recording, and editing while learning how cinematic language - framing, duration, movement, and montage - can evoke character and personality. Each student will develop a short documentary film centered on an in-depth interview with a participant reflecting on how they became political. Through screenings, readings, workshops, and critiques, we will consider authorship, power, consent, and collaboration in nonfiction practice. The course culminates in a completed short film and reflective writing on process and ethical positioning.
Open to students with prior coursework in Film & Media Studies or by permission of the instructor. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH. Fall 2026. Visiting Cornell Professor, Mila Turajlić. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 034Transmedia Worldbuilding and Storytelling1
The invention and exploration of elaborate fictional worlds span millennia of human cultural practice, from the islands of Homer’s Odyssey to the Middle Earth of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the blockbuster universes of Star Wars, Marvel and DC. This class explores the mechanical and aesthetic principles of crafting detailed imaginary worlds and using them to tell stories that interconnect across diverse media, ranging from film, television, theater, and comics to digital and tabletop gaming, LARPs, virtual reality, and other emerging platforms. In a workshop environment devoted to developing our own world concepts, we will engage forms of paratextual production such as costume and set design; model building and prop fabrication; the drafting of maps, blueprints, encyclopedias, and other reference materials; and the coining of conlangs (constructed languages). Through our creative work we will explore the history of and critical theory surrounding subcreation, transmedia storytelling, and convergence culture, touching on key works in literary and adaptation theory, global/locative studies, fandom studies, production culture, genre theory, narratology, performance, gaming, animation, and spectacle/special effects.
Any FMST course. FMST 001 , FMST 025 , FMST 036 , FMST 041 , or any production course strongly recommended. Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 035Video Game Design and Creation1
Introduces students to the basic elements and steps involved in conceptualizing and making games for popular digital platforms. Integrating readings on the aesthetics and genres of video gaming, our collaborative workshop environment will use web-based game development tools to craft both simple and complex games that build and comment on the histories, pleasures, and politics of the video game medium. Course work includes short creative assignments, readings, discussions, a weekly lab, and a final project.
FMST 36 or equivalent CS courses recommended. Humanities 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 036Theory and History of Video Games1
This course investigates the video game medium from its earliest incarnation in hackers’ prankish exploits to the latest in AAA and indie publishing, drawing on a variety of texts and perspectives as well as on play, analysis, and creation of video games themselves to build a portrait not just of games, gamers, and gaming, but of a unique moment in the evolution of contemporary digital media. After establishing a basic conceptual vocabulary for thinking, speaking, and writing about video games, we will shift our attention to the broader contexts and cultural functions of video gaming - as commercial and transmedia entities; as spaces for the forging of identity and sociality; and as objects of fandom and instruments of ideology. Required weekly out-of-class gaming and viewing assignments. Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Rehak.
This course will explore genre in American television from the 1950s to today through the lens of gender and sexuality. Students will learn about genre theory and media specific historical, aesthetic, economic conventions of television genres. We will discuss how macro and micro genres intersect with gender in target and niche audience composition and viewing habits and practices. How ideas and social rituals of leisure and labor figure into generic representations of gender and sexuality and vice versa. How race, class and gender form intersectionalities explored, exploited and expanded differently by televisual flow than in our current convergence era of streamed content. Each week students are responsible for screening at least two assigned episodes and blogging on one episode of a classic TV show they commit to for the semester. One analytical paper. Every student has to give one presentation analyzing selected clips in the context of critical scholarly articles. Midterm and Final exams. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST
This advanced Television Studies course explores the history and practices of the television medium in its connections to concepts and theories of realism. We will be considering reality modes in early anthropological films and documentary/fiction hybrids (People on Sunday, Nanook of the North), and the 1930s TV coverage of the German Olympics alongside the works of Andre Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Sergei Eisenstein and others. We will discuss the impact of neo-realist schools of filmmaking (Italian, French and German) on the first “reality” series on U.S. television - An American Family (PBS, 1973) and vice versa. We will investigate the live-studio audience aspect of talk and game shows, the rise of The Real World, the longevity of Survivor and Big Brother, think about global television formats and how reality shows interact with social media and socio-political practice (American Idol). How and why is realism semiotically and socio-politically connected to the televisual medium? How does this relationship change over the years and through the different cycles of technological, digital and programmatic innovation?
FMST 001 , FMST 025 or FMST 054 Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2027 Simon. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 040FYS: Media Matters
Humanities. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
In recent decades, the figure of the fan has become a crucial site in reception and cultural studies for investigating complexities of pleasure, power, resistance, taste, and gender. Now, as fandom moves into the mainstream and becomes part and parcel of how media industries operate, a critical understanding and appreciation of fan practices is essential to a liberal arts education. FMST 041 blends close readings of book chapters and articles with screenings of feature films, TV episodes, video games, webcomics, and other media created by or engaged by fans. Along with practices such as vidding, conventiongoing, and cosplay, we investigate these phenomena both as texts as quanta of social exchange, charged with personal and collective significance, which dynamically shape the fields of consumption and production, politics and entertainment, normalization and taboo in which we live our media. Eligible for GSST credit if all papers and projects are focused on GSST topics. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST.
This course surveys and investigates the history and evolution of animation, both as a medium “in itself” and as a set of practices and aesthetics that circulate across different media, technologies, and cultural settings. Our meetings will focus on engaged discussion of screenings informed by close readings of animation scholarship and criticism. Screenings will showcase a variety of animated material ranging from traditional narrative feature films and shorts to gaming, machinima, advertising, documentary, and experimental art. Assignments include critical essays and short creative projects. Humanities. 1 credit.
Investigates conspiracy and the paranoid imagination both within film and television narratives (through stories built around plots, hidden agendas, and betrayal) and as a mode of skepticism and mistrust toward media themselves (the role played by media in coverups, hoaxes, and “fake news”). Focusing on a period from the Cold War to present day politics, the course constructs an archeology of screen, print, and interactive media to explore the shifting meanings of conspiracy in response to technological and social change. Topics include the structural affinities among conspiracy, narration, and seriality; recurring thematics such as biological contagion, corporate and patriarchal menace, and supernatural forces; and the role of digital media in both spreading and debunking conspiracies. Required weekly viewing. Eligible for INTP
Cinema has been well suited to depicting glamour, opulence, and wealth. But what about the widespread situation of being poor and living on the brink of being even worse off? This course explores how poverty and economic precarity have been represented in narrative film from the 1930s to the present, including Hollywood film in the era of the Great Depression and the New Deal, neorealism, surrealism, Third Cinema, the LA Rebellion, and New Korean Cinema. How does attention to poverty inform aesthetic and narrative form? What are the social and political implications of how film addresses economic inequality? Our focus will be on narrative film, but students will have the opportunity to consider other audiovisual media for the final essay project.
FMST 001 or instructor permission. Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: https://swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 045Feminist Film and Media Studies1
(Cross-listed as ENGL 091 ) This course explores theories and methods at the intersection of film and media and gender and sexuality studies, including representation and self-representation, historiography and canon formation, intersectionality and transnational politics, gender performativity and sexual dissidence, cultural production and critique. Required weekly screenings feature films and programs from a range of historical periods, national production contexts, and styles: mainstream and independent, narrative, documentary, video art, and experimental. Readings in feminist film theory will address questions of authorship and aesthetics, spectatorship and reception, image and gaze, and current media politics. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST, INTP. Fall 2027 White.
(Cross-listed as ENGL 090 , GSST 020 ) The history of avant-garde and experimental media has been intertwined with that of gender non-conformity and sexual dissidence. Queer theory has developed in relation to queer film texts and cultures. How do lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (lgbt) filmmakers queer sexual norms and standard media forms? Challenging classic Hollywood’s heterosexual presumption and mass media appropriations of lgbt culture, we will examine lgbt aesthetic strategies and modes of address in contexts such as the American and European avant-gardes, AIDS activism, and transnational and diasporan film. Under special circumstances particularly well-prepared freshmen can request instructor permission to take course. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST, INTP, DGHU. Spring 2027. Li.
(Cross-listed as GSST 022 , DANC 039 ) What does it mean to be moved? To see movement on screen? This advanced undergraduate course looks at filmic representations of dance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Treating dance on film as more than just a spectacle of entertainment or mere affirmation of cultural identity and history, we will develop critical toolkits for understanding how the politics of race (primarily Black and Asian diasporic) and gender shape interpretations of dance on film. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST, DANC, BLST, ASAM, ESCH. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies
This course considers how Philadelphia has been mediated and imagined in cinema, popular culture, and US history. We explore Philadelphia’s key role in early film’s emergence, in framing ideas about black lives, and its potential for opening up questions about the cultural geography of cinema and media. Critical attention to onscreen representation, from sitcoms to documentaries to Hollywood film, will be complemented by historical research and ethnographic fieldwork, drawing on our proximity to the city. Humanities. 1 Credit.
Is there such a thing as world cinema, or is the concept a naïve or imperialist one? What is the relationship between “world cinema” and national cinemas? What is “national” about national cinemas? This course introduces students to theoretical debates about the categorization and global circulation of films, film style, authorship, and audiences through case studies drawn from Iranian, Indian, East Asian (Korea, Taiwan), Latin American, European, and U.S. independent cinemas. Special attention to how film festivals, journalism, and cinephile culture confer value. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-Core. Spring 2028 White.
(Cross-listed as LITR 051G , GMST 051 ) Setting out from the cornerstones of aesthetics, history and memory, this course introduces you to post-war directors from Italian Neo-Realism, British and French New Waves, Eastern European Cinema, Post-New Wave Italian auteurs, Spanish cinema after Franco, New German Cinema, Swedish and Danish cinema. The course addresses key issues and concepts in European cinema such as realism, authorship, art cinema, and political modernism, with reference to significant films and filmmakers and in the context of historical, social, and cultural issues. Taught in English. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST, GLBL-Paired
(Cross-listed as FREN 073 & LITR 073F ) This course is an in-depth exploration of the development and evolution of the French New Wave in postwar France. We will concentrate on the history of the New Wave in France from the 1950s through the late 1960s by the close study of the styles of individual filmmakers, the “film movement” as perceived by critics, and the New Wave’s contribution to modernizing France. The primary emphasis will be on the stylistic, socio-political, and cultural dimensions of the New Wave, and the filmmakers and critics most closely associated with the movement. Directors, who were once all film critics for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, will be studied along side other important filmmakers of the era. Fulfills national cinema requirement for FMST. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired
(Cross-listed as LALS 053 ) This course engages a history of Latin American cinema from the late 19th through the 21st century. It provides an overview of the history of film in the region with a focus on how filmmakers sought a more material connection between politics, cinema, and society. This course is divided loosely around the major cinematic periods of this history: avant-garde cinema, studio cinema, art cinema, neorealism, New Latin American Cinema, and contemporary cinema. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS. Fall 2027 Almeida.
(Cross-listed as LITR 054G , GMST 054 ) This writing intensive course is an introduction to German Cinema from its inception in the 1890s until the present. It includes an examination of early exhibition forms, expressionist and avant garde films from the classic German cinema of the Weimar era, fascist cinema, postwar rubble films, DEFA films from East Germany, New German Cinema from the 1970s, post 1989 heritage films, Turkish-German Cinema, and Berlin School films from the 2000s. Students in the class will analyze a cross-match of popular and arthouse cinemas while discussing concepts of mass culture, medium-specific aesthetics, propaganda, history and memory as identity- and nation-building practices. Taught in English.
FMST 001 or instructor’s permission. Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for LITR, GMST. Fall 2027 Simon. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 056Brazilian Society in Film1
(Cross-listed as LALS 056 ) This course proposes to explore issues of race, sex, gender, and class in contemporary Brazilian film. Film, for the purpose of the class, will be viewed as text and analyzed for articulations of national discourses on the four topic areas mentioned above. Engaging with films will offer students an additional cultural context to examine critically the development of nation and national ideologies such as “the myth of racial democracy”. It also aims at contributing to students’ development of the idea of a multicultural and socially multi-diverse Brazil, with specific social, economic, and cultural realities in different geographical areas as shown in assigned films. Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS. Spring 2027. Almeida.
(Cross-listed as LITR 024J , JPNS 024 ) This course offers a historical and thematic introduction to Japanese cinema, one of the world’s great film traditions. Our discussions will center on the historical context of Japanese film, including how films address issues of modernity, gender, class conflict, and national identity. Through our readings, discussion, and writing, we will explore various approaches to film analysis, with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of formal and thematic issues. A separate unit will consider the development of Japanese animation (anime) and its characteristics. Screenings will include films by Ozu, Kurosawa, Koreeda, Tanaka, Miyazaki, and Shinkai. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, CPLT. Fall 2026. Gardner.
FMST 058Film and Place: West African Filmmakers at Home and Abroad1
Cross-listed with LITR 078F . The moving image, it is often argued, has a special relationship to time and space, and in this class, we will explore how West African filmmakers explore and represent space by emphasizing place(s), both real and imagined. Using the lens of critical issues in postcolonial film studies, we will consider how to analyze these places by focusing our observations on the built-environment and the natural world; homelands and hostlands; mobility and stillness. Filmmakers studied include Mati Diop (France/Senegal), Sembène Ousmane (Senegal), Abderrahmane Sissako (Mali/Mauritania), Jean-Marie Téno (Cameroon), Apolline Traoré (Burkina Faso), Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (Senegal), among others. This course is open to all students. There are no prerequisites. The course is taught in English. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, GLBL-paired.
(Cross-listed as LALS 069 , HIST 069 ) This course chronicles the cultural history of television in the Americas from its experimental phase in the early 20th century to present-day streaming wars. Over the course of the semester, we will analyze the relationship between television, culture, and politics to better understand the role of the medium in society. By taking a hemispheric approach, this course also emphasizes the transnational currents that shaped national identities on the screen and transmitted them across the Americas. It asks, does television shape the nation or reflect it? How has politics informed the development of television programming? How has television shaped the US understanding of Latin America/Latinx peoples? And vice versa? Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS, HIST.
(Cross-listed as LALS 060 ) This course uses television programs to trace the histories and experiences of Latiné migrants living in the United States. By analyzing television shows with a predominantly Latiné cast, we will study the historical, political, and economic processes that have led to these migrations, as well as the varying ways in which race/ethnicity, class, gender/sexuality, and citizenship affect Latiné migrants’ lived experiences in the U.S. Eligible for LALS. Spring 2028 Almeida. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 070Media Industries and the Future of the Internet1
This course is focused on understanding the nature of “media convergence.” It is a theory, a practice, and a strategy that experts, practitioners, scholars, and consumers engage with everyday to make sense of the impulses and forces that guide our social media use, what we buy, what we eat, what we watch, and how we think about the internet. The course aims to guide students through trends and issues in a wide variety of media industries such as advertising, music, audio, movies and television, gaming, and the “internet industry” at large, as well as scholarly and industry research that aims to critically uncover and predict the future of these industries. Humanities. 1 credit.
AI tools for the generation of text, imagery, sound, and other media have disrupted the technological, cultural, and pedagogical landscape while raising pressing questions about knowledge, representation, creativity, and the relationship between humanity and technology. This class explores AI media in their own right as well as their impact on “legacy” media forms and practices. Along with attention to AI’s aesthetics and formal possibilities, we will consider its harms, including environmental impact, the spread of misinformation and surveillance, and AI’s contribution to inequalities in global media labor. Coursework includes projects using AI tools and research into the histories of computation and automation in media. Humanities. 1 credit.
How did we get from Dallas (USA, CBS 1978-1991) to The Landman (USA, CBS/Paramount+, 2025-), and from An American Family (USA, PBS 1973) to The Kardashians (USA, Hulu 2022-)? The study of genres is essential for the critical analysis of media from content creation, production and marketing to dissemination, reception and fan-based or commercial appropriation and remediation. As the tell-tale signs of mature media industries, genres not only reveal perspectives on a society’s aesthetic and cultural values but also on its economies of desire and anxiety, its behaviors, myths and blind spots. At the same time, as genres change and adapt to new technologies, production and reception practices, they remain contested attempts at categorizing diverse narrative approaches across media types emerging from specific national cultures while reaching across the globe. Students will study and discuss major debates in genre theory and evolving genre practices. In individual writing and group project assignments, students will grapple with some of the more challenging case studies in film, television, videogames and social media. Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Simon.
Considering horror entertainment across different eras and media platforms, this course introduces students to the study of genre through a survey of the many forms taken by fear, disgust, and the uncanny as narrative and spectacle in twentieth- and twenty-first-century moving-image culture. We will draw on approaches ranging from psychoanalysis and gender studies to affect, abjection, and political allegory to explore subtopics such as monstrosity, perversion, and the grotesque; representations of the supernatural and paranormal; body horror and “torture porn”; and the alien as other and self. Required weekly screenings and in-class viewing include movies, television, and video games. Warning: course content may be disturbing and upsetting.
FMST 001 or instructor’s permission. Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 083Crime Drama1
(Cross-listed as GMST 083 , LITR 083 ) This course looks at the history and format of the crime drama in film and on television. More than other genres, crime dramas have reflected on societies’ historical blind spots, taboos, and peripheries along with its reigning hierarchies of power, and they have debated foundational ethical parameters amidst ongoing struggles to deal with change, particularly in relation to childhood, gender, race, class, and sexuality. At the same time, the genre has continuously placed its aesthetic expression in dialogue with new forensic and media-specific technologies. In this class, students will investigate - individually and in group projects - what has made the crime drama such a success in different media and mediascapes, how the genre’s familiar stock characters, plotlines, settings, and recognizable styles have adapted and what accounts for its ability to speak to audiences across different cultural backgrounds while emanating from and representing cultural, national, and regional specificities, and how the genre has responded to social activism and debates over police brutality and the prison-industrial complex. HU. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Simon. Spring 2028 Simon.
This course begins by exploring a major paradigm or debate in the field and reviewing research methodology and production techniques. Students then undertake an individual or collaborative research or creative project (in some cases building upon work started in another class or independent study), meeting to workshop ideas and present works-in-progress. Research projects will incorporate multimedia presentation, and creative projects will be accompanied by written materials. The semester culminates in a panel/film exhibition. Required for FMST senior majors and minors.
Instructor’s approval. Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Rehak. Spring 2028 Simon. Catalog chapter: Film and Media Studies Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/film-media-studies Access the class schedule to search for sections.
FMST 097Independent Study1
Students must apply for preregistration approval in writing. 0.5 to 1 credit.
This honors seminar explores the cultures and content of the contemporary mediascape through formal, technological, and political lenses, reading emergent paradigms such as virality, paratextuality, and collective intelligence against equivalent historical moments of media evolution. Particular attention will be paid to the concepts of “the digital”; rhetorics of revolution and continuity; and the intersection of information, entertainment, and capitalism within a dominant episteme of new media. Course majors and other students with relevant background can apply for instructor’s approval to take the seminar. Humanities. 2 credits. Eligible for DGHU
