Cinema Studies

Few art forms have had a greater impact on modern culture than cinema. Over the course of cinema’s relatively brief history, film criticism and theory have grappled with some of the issues most central to the humanities, including how to represent and transform the world and how technological changes have affected the production and consumption of images. As an academic discipline, cinema studies explores moving images circulating in a variety of media platforms and formats.

The minor in cinema studies focuses on the history, theory, and practice of film and related media. It makes coherent both the historical and aesthetic dimensions of cinema, including the mutual influence of cinema with its cultural, technological, national, and transnational contexts. As a distinct field of study influenced by a range of disciplines—among them art history, English, and the sciences—the minor draws on connections among departments, while at the same time providing a core of courses foundational to the discipline of cinema studies itself.

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