Undergraduate Courses Spring 2008

CCS101-B IMAGES AND TEXTS: UNDERSTANDING CULTURES

The images and texts of advertising, television, art, writing, film, and performance and how they come to characterize and shape our everyday lives. Using case studies, students learn how to recognize, read, and analyze culture within a particular social, cultural, or political context, touching upon such important issues as race, gender, class, ideology, and censorship.

101.01 LEC-MW 3:50PM-4:45PM LIGHT ENGR LAB 102
LAB - TU 6:50PM-8:50PM JAVITS HUMANITIES Rm 1003
I. KALINOWSKA-BLACKWOOD

101.02 LEC-MW 9:35AM-10:30PM HUMANITIES 3018
LAB-W 6:50PM-8:50PM HUMANITIES 3018
C. MIZE-BURROWS

CCS 201 WRITING ABOUT CULTURE

This course teaches research methodology, develops critical thinking, and hones argumentative writing skills. A range of cultural artifacts, issues, and approaches are considered along with the ways that various discourses appropriate or critique them. Students gain extensive training in the methods essential to the use of resources and to critial writing. In addition to the prerequisite described below, this course must be taken after CCS 101 and before CCS 301.

Prerequisite: Completion of D.E.C. Category A

LEC-TUTH 3:50PM-4:45PM MELVILLE LBR N5004
LAB-TU 6:50PM-8:50PM MELVILLE LBR N5004
K. PAPE

CCS 301-G THEORIZING CINEMA AND CULTURE

The course provides a historical and critical overview of influential theories in cinema and culture. By engaging with a range of theoretical texts that addresses issues of textual workings and cultural impact of cinema, we will explore topics such as film language, spectatorship, gender and race theory, postcoloniality, transnationality, globality, and new media theory. With exposure to an extensive range of theoretical perspectives, we will develop skills for thinking, discussing, reading, and writing about the production, consumption and reception of diverse media and cultural forms.

Prerequisites: Two courses toward the major in cinema and cultural studies.

LEC-MW 2:20PM-3:15PM MELVILLE LIB Rm N5004
LAB-M 6:50PM-8:50PM MELVILLE LIB Rm N5004
K. GABBARD

CCS311 GENDER AND GENRE IN FILM: GENDER AND COMEDY

This course will consider film comedy as a genre closely intertwined with problems of gender and sexuality. Our discussions will explore how throughout its history, film comedy reproduced and also shaped roles of masculinity and femininity in society. Besides unmasking the gendered messages of film comedies, we will also look into ways in which certain comedies transgress and break away from gender norms. While watching films such as Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder), Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen), The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel Cohen), and Brigit Jones' Diary (2001, Sharon Maguire) we will repeatedly ask the following questions: what is film comedy? What is gender? How are laughter and sexuality related? What happens to gender stereotypes in film comedy? How do film comedies reinforce or disrupt our dominant images of masculinity and femininity? Some readings will be related to general issues of comedy and the concept of gender, helping us apply both terms to the analysis of the films. Other readings will focus on individual films showing us specific ways these films could be interpreted as ‘gender sensitive’.

Prerequisite: CCS 101 or HUM 201 or 202 or THR 117

LEC-TUTH 2:20PM -3:15PM MELVILLE LBR N5004
LAB-TH 6:50PM-8:50PM MELVILLE LBR N5004
L.TOKE

CCS401 SENIOR SEMINAR IN CINEMA AND CULTRUAL STUDIES: MINORITY CINEMA IN EUROPE

This course will analyze the cinematographic productions of minority groups in France, Germany and England, with a special emphasis on Black British cinema, Turkish German cinema and beur cinema.

prerequisites: U4 standing, CCS major.

LEC-TUTH 3:50PM-5:50PM MELVILLE LBR W3580
LAB-TH 5:50PM-7:50PM MELVILLE LBR W3580
P. NGANANG

CCS 475 UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING PRACTICUM I

Work with a faculty member as an assistant in one of the faculty member’s regularly scheduled classes. The student is required to attend all the classes, do all the regularly assigned work and meet with the faculty member at regularly scheduled times to discuss the intellectual and pedagogical matters relating to the course.

Prerequisites: U3 or U4 standing; permission of instructor and department

by appointment J. REICH

CCS 487 - INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

Intensive readings and research on a special topic undertaken with close faculty supervision. May be repeated.

Prerequisite: Permission of instructor and department

by appointment J. REICH

CCS 488 - INTERNSHIP

May be repeated up to a limit of 12 credits, but only 3 credits may be applied toward the cinema and cultural studies major.

Prerequisite: Permission of program advisor

by appointment J. REICH

CCS 495 - SENIOR HONORS PROJECT IN CINEMA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

A one-semester project for CCS majors who are candidates for the degree with departmental honors. The project involves independent study under close supervision of an appropriate faculty member, and the written and oral presentation to the department faculty colloquium of an honors thesis.

Prerequisite: Permission of instructor and undergraduate program director.

by appointment J. REICH

See Prof. Jacqueline Reich (jreich@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) for further details or questions about the programs.