This course introduces students to the history of Asian-Black Americans’ racial solidarity and social struggles, examines the contemporarily related issues in the two communities, and suggests the ways in which the two groups of people of color can provide mutual supports in relentless struggles for social justice and the improvement of the marginalized communities. We will begin the course with a close examination of how early Black movements and leadership made a significant impact on Asian American individuals and groups in the contemporary Asian American Movement and how such movements gave birth to Black-Asian activism and academic formation. We will then probe the cultural complexities and the social agenda of the historically racial tension between Asians and Blacks in working neighborhoods in US metropolitans in the age of modern Asian immigration and Black economic struggle. Finally, we will examine recently rising challenges and opportunities amongst such communities related to social aspects of cultural production, educational opportunity, economic relations, and interracial family and identity. Importantly, throughout the course we will emphasize on the crucial mission for Asian and African Americans to carry on the legacy of racial/ethnic solidarity into the 21st century struggles such as Black Lives Matters and many more.

This interdisciplinary course provides students with the opportunity to explore the cultural, political, and economic conditions faced by peoples of the Caribbean. The region is defined by its geography, common historical experiences, such as slavery and the triangular trade, participation in the global community, labor migration, cultural identities, the intermixing of diverse ethnic and racial groups, and nation-states that have sought sovereignty. Students will gain an understanding of the diversity of the Caribbean, and the factors that shape Caribbean identity and culture past and present.

Students will wrestle with some of the theoretical challenges of imagining a cohesive Caribbean: What unites these different countries? What unique histories have produced very different cultures in the Caribbean? How do people in these different nation-states define their own experiences and identities? And what are the ethical questions that emerge out of policies for globalized development today? We will examine the meanings of race, mixed race, and gender identity in Caribbean society, particularly around the contested experiences of Afro-Caribbean people. Looking at many new texts in the field, we will explore economies of tourism, sex tourism, cultural and economic remittances, cultural production, and post-colonial popular culture through literature, film and video, music, fine arts as well as the transmission of culture across borders—particularly through social media. We will also examine the many economic forces of globalization, including CARICOM (the Caribbean Community and Common Market), NAFTA, and CAFTA for their impact on the people in the region. 

This course will include important perspectives from a range of disciplines that intersect with cultural studies, such as anthropology, history, sociology, queer studies, gender studies, transnational feminist cultural studies, comparative literature, film studies and the digital humanities. *Students may petition for Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies course credit.

In this course, we will analyze and respond to black female adolescent protagonists’ experiences of race, gender, and class and national identity. Focusing on narratives of the lives of adolescent girls and young women of African descent, we will explore themes such as transnational identity, migration, labor, agency, rebellion, disability, colonialism, blackness, colorism, racial ambiguity, gender ambiguity, queer identity, sexuality and sexual violence.

Undergraduates should come to this course with some exposure to issues of gender, race, and feminist theory. Students will develop close reading skills with which to analyze literature and film—from short stories and short films to novels and feature length films and documentaries—and will learn to produce critical writing about these types of texts. With an intersectional lens of analysis, students will identify and respond to tropes of blackness and femaleness that these authors and filmmakers both rely on and push back against in their portrayals of the significance of being young, black and female in many different contexts in the world.

Technical skills in video recording and editing, and development of creative means of expression in this time-based media art form.

Chemical and digital photography, single and multiple imagery, Web art and video art.

Senior Photography/Digital Media Major I

This course explores the diversity of practices and art forms—including painting, sculpture, performance, installation, and new media—that defined advanced art from the 1960s into the 1980s, a period encompassing the epochal shift from modernism to postmodernism. With focus on diverse artists working in North America and Europe, the course charts the shifting definitions and roles of art, artists, and the avant-garde in the wake of social, cultural, and economic change in the post-World War II moment as well as significant theoretical concepts that helped make sense of the myriad new approaches to art-making. Movements and tendencies to be studied include Abstract Expressionism, New Realism, Happenings, Fluxus, Pop, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Process Art, Experimental Music, Dance, and Film, Conceptual Art, Site-Specificity, Land Art, Institutional Critique, Activist Art, Feminist Art, New Media, and more. 

This course surveys developments in contemporary art from the 1980s to the present in the United States, understood within an increasingly international purview. Highlights include: appropriation art and the critique of authorship, neo-expressionist painting, institutional critique, video art and new media, multiculturalism and identity politics, public art and the culture wars, graffiti and street art, art and the AIDS crisis, relational aesthetics and social practice, installation art, the significance of the year 1989 in art and global politics, biennials and international exhibitions, and the expanding contemporary art market. Course themes are informed by key political and theoretical issues that emerged around and through art made in the last four decades; as such, this course serves as an introduction not only to some of the major art and criticism to emerge in the late 20th and early 21st centuries but also to important figures in postmodern and contemporary critical theory. In our final meetings, we will speculate on how we might make historical sense of developments in art practice and discourse of the very present.

The purpose of this course is to look at a handful of major international films produced during a particularly turbulent decade in world history. This was a period of “new wave” innovations in various nations’ cinemas, but we will attempt to place those innovations within a broader historical and political context. In this regard we will explore the ideologies of a number of countercultural groups of the period and consider how their ideas and attitudes may have influenced the moviemaking of the times, or vice versa. Where appropriate, we will briefly look at other media of the period (e.g., visual art, literature, popular culture) for added context.

The purpose of this course is to look at a handful of major international films produced during a particularly turbulent decade in world history. This was a period of “new wave” innovations in various nations’ cinemas, but we will attempt to place those innovations within a broader historical and political context. In this regard we will explore the ideologies of a number of countercultural groups of the period and consider how their ideas and attitudes may have influenced the moviemaking of the times, or vice versa. Where appropriate, we will briefly look at other media of the period (e.g., visual art, literature, popular culture) for added context.

Is there an Indian culture? Do we think of “Indian culture” in singular or plural? What are the sources of our knowledge? Bollywood? Politics? Literature? Music? This course aims to challenge, inform, and affirm answers to the above questions by providing a substantial background on history, culture, languages, and politics of India via literature and films.

This course examines contemporary Chinese popular culture as a response to the profound changes to Chinese society in the 1990s and beyond. Through discussing film, literature, music, performance, fashion, art and internet culture, this course explores the radically changing role of socialist politics, government censorship, the rise of consumerism, and China’s global cultural significance in the contemporary world.

This course explores modern Chinese films that focus on China and transnational Sinophone communities such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and beyond. By watching and discussing films throughout the 20th and 21st century, we will trace the social-political and cultural transformation of the Chinese society. The course focuses on various important themes and debates in modern Chinese films such as love, sexuality, memories, nationalism, gender, race and class. All lectures, discussions and assignments will be in English. Films will be screened with English subtitles. No prior knowledge of Chinese Culture or language necessary.

This course examines the changing literary and cultural trends in modern China.By reading representative literature of various genres (short stories, novels, poetry, etc.) and films throughout the 20th and 21st century, we will trace the social-political and cultural transformation of the Chinese society. The course focuses on various important themes and debates in modern Chinese literature and films such as nationalism, gender, race and class. This course will familiarize students with major modern Chinese writers and works in both Mainland China and marginal regions including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, and hopes to help students form an understanding of modern Chinese literature. Taught in English.

Fundamentals of current and emerging production techniques in media industries.

Script writing for broadcast media. 

Introduction to the art, technology, economics, and social aspects of film.  Offers a look at the various components that go into the production of a film from screenwriting, directing, cinematography, acting, editing and more. Examines how films come together and show to watch, understand and analyze the final productions. Taught through traditional lecture, small and large group seminar discussions and film screenings.

Students will research a single topic and use various online tools to tell stories related to their topic that may incorporate images, video, sound, text, and audience participation.

Principles of film and video preproduction and production management, including techniques of script breakdown, scheduling, budgeting, and producing of professional productions and student projects.

Performance techniques for media professionals in news, information, commercial, and entertainment programming.

The evolution of film form, content, technology, and economics with special emphasis on American films.

Principles, methods, and problems in writing dramatic scripts; readings in the dramatic literature of broadcasting and film. 

This course looks at the interaction between the culture, social and historical forces in a society and the films that are the product of those forces. While the course will have an historical flow, this is not a course on film history, but will focus on what the films can tell us about the society and the historical context that surrounded them. There will be an extensive focus on "Film Noir" this semester. Students will do a series of short film analyses and a final examination.

Investigation of the use of visual media creation/editing applications, components, uses as related to film, television, and visual communications industries. Style, ethics, and the politic of the editor emphasized.

Exploration of documentary filmmaking modes and techniques, and film appreciation, as well as producing documentaries.

Introduction to digital color correction, balancing, grading, and color theory through the use of DaVinci Resolve 16.

Production techniques for working with clients on audio/visual projects including film production for event coverage, professional media, and content creation, and strategy for social media.

This is a detailed examination of the life and films of the great director, Alfred Hitchcock. The seminar will consist of readings, screenings and discussions. The focus will be on the interrelationship between Hitchcock the man, his philosophy of life, and the films that he directed. We will screen a selected number of his films, both the obscure, (The Thirty-Nine Steps) and the famous, (Psycho). Students will be expected to do extensive reading and prepare a series of short papers, as well as participate in classroom discussions.

Introduction to digital film and video production from concept development and planning through post-production to delivery.

Two-dimensional (2D) computer-generated imagery (CGI), including drawing, coloring, and animating objects and characters; phonemes for character dialog; and object-oriented programming.

Advanced digital video production from concept development and planning through post-production to delivery.

Three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated imagery (CGI), including modeling, texturing, and rigging for animating objects and characters; morph target blendshapes for facial animation and phonemes; and special effects creation with compositing.

The technology, production, and management of creative storytelling authored across multiple media distribution platforms.

The purpose of this course is to consider two related but distinct media (literature and film) in terms of their formal, rhetorical, narrative and (in the case of cinema) visual and aural organization. That is, we will look at films and literary works as texts, examining not only what they mean but how they create meaning.

The course shall explore affinities between Medieval literature and history and cultural and political issues of the 20th-21st century, using a variety of medieval texts that have been adapted into film, television, and other media. While studying the texts we shall discuss how contemporary high and popular culture have adapted these texts cinematically to reflect current issues (of the period of post-medieval adaptation). Texts and topics include: Arthurian Romances such as The Vulgate Cycle; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the Lais of Marie de France about hybrid monsters; Silence, an Arthurian romance about a female cross-dressing as a male knight; and the earliest British epic, Beowulf. Wherever possible, texts will be compared to their various films and TV adaptations. Analysis will reflect issues of gender construction, sexuality, monster theory, and politics.

This course focuses on editing a literary magazine, Glass Mountain, the national magazine produced by undergraduates at the University of Houston, which regularly includes film reviews written by students and community members. Activities include editing the magazine (calling for submissions, working with writers, producing a print edition and online sections), maintaining web and social media presence, producing events (readings, craft talks, visiting writers, fundraising) as well as hosting an annual writing conference for new writers (The Boldface Conference for Emerging Writers) each May.

Bruce Lee.  Jackie Chan.  John Woo.  Chow Yun-fat.  These names spring to mind when we think of Hong Kong film, but how much more to the distinct national cinema exists beyond these figures famed from martial arts-inspired action?  This course in film studies surveys one of the most locally successful and internationally influential film traditions outside of Hollywood.  By looking at Hong Kong movies from the 1980s and 1990s—the era of renown for most of the preceding stars—as well as films from before that time and after, we will explore the distinguishing aspects of this fascinating non-western film style.  What generic, stylistic, and thematic elements characterize Hong Kong cinema, and what do they suggest about the local culture in which these films were made and viewed?  How do these attributes compare with other western and non-western film styles, and what forms of Hong Kong cinema have been most popular abroad?  To what extent does Hong Kong cinema reflect the idiosyncrasies of the territory’s social and political situation, and how much is it a product of global film traditions in which all movies inevitably also partake?

Each week we will watch a great movie, investigate it as a work of art, place it in history, and think together about its political and social implications. We will also learn how to write about film, with the help of the required text, Film Studies by Ed Sikov (buy either the first or second edition). There will be additional reading each week about the film. All movies will be available on Kanopy or another  free UH service. Directors will include Chaplin, Ford, Hitchcock, Naruse, Mizoguchi, Scorsese, Kubrick, and others. Requirements: attendance, discussion, and a series of short essays.

Who deserves credit for making a film? Is it the director? Screenwriter? The star who carries it, or the studio and producer who fund and realize it? At the Oscars, these various roles are discrete categories, but cinema is an expensive and labor-intense product that depends on many contributors and is vulnerable to countless conditions. These exigencies make film a notably challenging medium in which to identify authorship. While a novel, painting, or even a contemporary song usually has a single or limited set of creators, movies defy our traditional notions of solitary, unique genius. These ambiguities of authorship in cinema, moreover, have only grown more complex with digital and online media, as fan culture, narrowcast platforms, and adjacent and spinoff industries like gaming and retail goods transform the origins of narrative content.

This version of ENGL 4373: Film, Text, and Politics explores questions of authorship in film history and theory. Combining analytic readings alongside a selection of narrative film, this course explores Hollywood history and practice, art and film criticism, and new media theory.

Study of film and literature from a selected culture.

At least since the latter decades of the previous century, the twenty-first century was thought to herald a time of multicultural harmony and post-racial progress, for which the US was to be an exemplar and leader.  Yet as recent events in this nation and elsewhere show, we are in the midst of a collective reckoning regarding race, in which the US is viewed as much as cautionary tale as a triumph.  What images and ideas shape popular notions of race, in American media and the global culture over which it still casts a long shadow?  What role did millennial globalization and digitization play in shaping and transforming these conventions, and what platforms and venues are today’s influencers and disrupters accessing to challenge the representations in which these notions were shaped?  Mixing scholarly criticism with general audience works, this graduate seminar explores both the intellectual content and modes of communication by which racial constructs are propagated in contemporary cultural criticism. 

A seminar applying various theoretical approaches in critical cultural studies to specific case studies, emphasizing the complementary influence of theories drawn from different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences on one another and on the analyses of the case studies.

From auteur and apparatus theory to production culture and participatory media, film and current digital culture have been the site of much critical thought and cultural examination. This course surveys the history and major works in moving image theory, both to become familiar with this increasingly important site of the humanities and to explore how these observations illuminate both academic and popular thought.  By engaging with critical thinking on the moving image, participants will both become sharpen their critical tools and become more sophisticated users of this ubiquitous and powerful presence in modern life.

From the silent era (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis), to sound and film noir (M), fascist ideology (Triumph of the Will) and post-war recovery (The Murderers Among Us), to New German Cinema and more recent films taking on the Nazi past (The Tin Drum, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Jakob the Liar, Nowhere in Africa) and life in modern Germany (Wings of Desire, Run Lola Run), we will explore narrative, production, reception, and the politics of representation through a century of German Cinema.

Examines the cinematic development of fascist ideology from images and ideas in the 1920s, through the years 1933-45 when the National Socialists controlled the German government.  Particular attention will be given to film as propaganda and to the roles of women in the films of this period and within Nazi ideology.

Behind the Wall: From 1946 to 1990, East German filmmakers explored the Nazi past, socialist realism, propaganda, state censorship, Stasi collaboration, class, race/ethnicity and gender in a society that proclaimed the emancipation of workers and women. The class will examine strategies of subversion in this historical context, as well as films that were banned. Many of the films have now become available and include love, war, comedy, documentary, avant-garde, and westerns!

This course engages with 20th and 21st century films about the ancient Greeks and Romans. Using each movie as a window, we will look at history from two perspectives: 1) the historians and writers from the ancient world, and 2) the modern filmmaker in Hollywood and abroad. This course will cover the historical events and ancient primary texts inspiring each movie, as well as modern scholarship questioning why the ancient world has been such a popular topic for modern audiences.

Our goal is not to decide who got history “right” or “wrong,” but to realize that history is a story told in a context. We will examine who tells this story and what underlining motives and factors shape their narrative. By the end of this course, you will have the tools to synthesize, analyze, and compare historical accounts, whether they are told in writing or through film.

By reading representative literature of various genres (short stories, novels, poetry, etc.) and films throughout the 20th and 21st century, we will trace the social-political and cultural transformation of the Chinese society. The course focuses on various important themes and debates in modern Chinese literature and films such as nationalism, gender, race and class. This course will familiarize students with major modern Chinese writers and works in both Mainland China and marginal regions including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, and hopes to help students form an understanding of modern Chinese literature. Taught in English.

Italian filmmakers have produced an impressive number of seminal films that have influenced and continue to influence the cinema of the entire world, from Europe to the United States, and from Latin America to Asia. In the fall of 2018, the course introduces the students to the most important films whose focus is on twentieth-century Rome, its history and its people. Films by Rossellini, Visconti, Fellini, Pasolini, Monicelli, Bellocchio, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Sorrentino.

Italian filmmakers have produced an impressive number of seminal films that have influenced and continue to influence the cinema of the entire world, from Europe to the United States, and from Latin America to Asia. In the fall of 2018, the course introduces the students to the most important films whose focus is on twentieth-century Rome, its history and its people. Films by Rossellini, Visconti, Fellini, Pasolini, Monicelli, Bellocchio, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Sorrentino.

Italian filmmakers have produced an impressive number of seminal films that have influenced and continue to influence the cinema of the entire world, from Europe to the United States, and from Latin America to Asia. In the fall of 2018, the course introduces the students to the most important films whose focus is on twentieth-century Rome, its history and its people. Films by Rossellini, Visconti, Fellini, Pasolini, Monicelli, Bellocchio, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Sorrentino.

This course is an in depth look at the Philosophy of Comics. In it, we will explore the following questions. What makes something a comic? Are comics fundamentally multi-media? What is the nature of the various comic production roles (inker, letterer, writer, penciller, editor, creator, etc.) as they relate to authorship? Can there be a comic without pictures? Are comics better suited to certain genres than others? What can comics do narratively that other forms (film, literature) cannot? What makes for a good comic? Along the way we will read the following comics: Frans Masereel, Passionate Journey; Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story; Dylan Horrocks, Hicksville; Richard McGuire, Here; Yuichi Yokoyama, Iceland; Rebecca Dart, RabbitHead; Joyce Farmer, Special Exits.

Students should acquire from this course a solid understanding of the principal issues in contemporary analytic philosophy of film as well as how these issues intersect with a variety of disciplines outside of philosophy (e.g., film studies, art history, psychology and cognitive science). The course will be divided into three parts, each part will contain four week-long topic sections, and each topic section will contain an assigned reading and a film to be screened in class. Part One covers the following topics: Film as Art, Cinematography, Film & Sound, and The Screenplay. Part Two will cover Documentary, Animation, Film Narration, and Film & Imagination. Part Three will cover Film & Gender, Film & Race, LGBTQ Cinema, and Film as Philosophy. Grading will be based on six short reviews of assigned films to be screened outside of class on UH’s Kanopy. Some of the films we will be watching both in and out of class are L’Atalante (1934), Blow Out (1981), The Conformist (1970), The Naked City (1948), Rashomon (1950), My Winnipeg (2007), Close-Up (1990), Wanda (1970), Le Bonheur (1965), Do the Right Thing (1989), and Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).

Explore portrayals of biblical stories in modern movies, TV, music, video games, books, comics, graphic novels, pop art, advertising, and memes! No prior knowledge required of the Bible or pop culture. Questions addressed will include: What can pop cultural representations of the Bible tell us about the biblical text? What can these representations tell us about the context in which they were produced? How does pop culture influence public ideas about the Bible? Sense of humor is a prerequisite.

This course is an introduction to a variety of religions through their portrayal in film. It explores the reciprocal relation of religion and manifestations of modern cultural identity.

Socio-cultural study of themes, production, and distribution of cinema. How film reflects the values and attitudes of society.

Sociological approaches to the study of art worlds, artists, objects. The roles objects and producers can play within society are also explored.

Sociological approaches to the study of art worlds, artists, objects. The roles objects and producers can play within society are also explored.

Uses of still or moving images as a means to collect social data, enhance interviews, and disseminate findings.

May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

Spanish Culture Through Film: Study of major Spanish films in their social, historical, and aesthetic contexts.

In this course, students will watch a variety of films that represent Latinxs in the United States. The course will delve into the various groups that encompass the label Latinx: chicanxs, puertorriqueñxs, cubanxs, centroamericanxs, dominicanxs and colombianxs. Other topics will include gender/sexuality, the Hollywood star system, migration, the Western, Latino and Latina stereotypes, and self-representation vs. mainstream media. Students will watch a variety of fiction films and documentaries about Latinxs and the different groups. 

This course will focus on the relationship between art, politics, and technology in the age of digital platforms. 

This course studies local and global developments and conflicts through works of literature, paintings, and films. We will pay special attention to the colonial history, nationalism, globalization, transnationalism, and migration of people and ideas. The course will begin with the Indian subcontinent and Africa. This beginning will give us an opportunity to understand the historic outcomes of colonization in the world. In the middle of the semester we will explore the Ghazal tradition in the Middle East and the world. Our goal is to understand the migration/development of a literary genre as a “world aesthetic,” while we savor some ghazals (poems). Our debates and discussions on world cultures, identity, and literatures will culminate with our focus on the Americas. 

Major cinematic works from Latin America, Asia, Middle-East, Europe, and Australia in relation to contemporary topics such as globalization and migrations.

The course will explore a variety of primarily non-Western films and media practices in order to reexamine received ideas about the role of the media and media technology within modern society. Prerequisite: ENG 1304 or equivalent. WCL 4352 counts toward WCL Minor.

What is “culture”? Is there an Indian culture? Do we think of “Indian culture” in singular or plural? What are the sources of our knowledge? Bollywood? Politics? Literature? Music? This undergraduate course aims to challenge, inform, and affirm answers to the above questions by providing a substantial background on history, cultures, caste, class, languages, and politics of India via modern and contemporary texts.

National cinema in its relationship with global film industry, international production and transnational issues.

This course explores the transformative impact of big data and digital networks on the contemporary economy, political culture and politics, in the US and globally. We will begin by examining the techno-utopianism of the early Internet age, which anticipatd the development of digitized democratic societies throughout the world, based on the flow of free information. After its peak with the “Facebook revolutions” in the Middle-East and North Africa in the early 2010s, the celebration of the purportedly progressive power of digital technology would give way to more dystopian discourses: critiques of the destructive potential of a new stage of capitalism based upon big data, and rise of a digital form of dictatorship, exploiting the new techniques of control, such as data surveillance and targeted fake news propaganda, powered by algorithms designed to capture attention. With the global rise of authoritarian leaders, buttressed by social media platforms, the history of contemporary media has taken an unexpected turn: The decentralized digital networks that were supposed to create more equal and democratic societies have instead produced the opposite outcome: global inequality and the rise of new forms of fascism that have adapted themselves to the internet age. The course will conclude by considering ways to address these unprecedented developments of the digital era.

Indian cinema is not just Bollywood, and Bollywood is not the only Indian cinema. The Indian film industry produces more than 800 movies a year. Taking inspiration from literature and social events, movies in India are produced in many languages. Bollywood – the Hindi film industry in the city of Mumbai – is a part of that canopy. By sampling Bollywood movies, “regional” cinema, South Asian movies, and films on “Indian” themes produced around the world, this course provides an immersive study of Indian cinema, analyzes the appeal and popularity of Indian cinema in local and global traditions, and probes questions of national identity, gender roles, and caste, class, and wealth structures.

An introduction to contemporary trends in film theory, with focus on the theories of the "gaze." Films from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East will be analyzed.

Advanced approach to artistic and cultural aspects of world cinema. Analysis of directors, trends, and critical literature in world cinema. Taught in English.

An introduction to contemporary trends in film theory, with focus on the theories of the "gaze." Films from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East will be analyzed.