School of Liberal Arts: Communication
2008-2009 Academic Year
307
COMM 481, 482 Special Topics in Communication (3, 3)
Staff: A detailed study of particular issues, problems and developments in the
history, theory and criticism of communication. Topics may be drawn from any
of the departmental areas of concentration, for example, the concept of invention,
the rhetoric of religion, non-verbal communication, mass media and culture and
similar themes. May be taken twice for credit on different topics.
COMM 485 - Cinema, Technology, Modernity (3)
Professor Balides: Focus on cinema as a cultural practice during the early and
late periods, especially as it has shaped perception and experience. Films are
assessed for the way they reenact the logic of key technologies and for the way
they represent technologies. Cinema is also viewed as a technology of vision in
its own right. In particular, 19th century optical toys, the railroad, photography,
the computer and cinema are assessed in relation to shifting conceptions of space
and time, modes of experience, the terms of everyday life, and the status of mass
culture and reproduction in the modern and postmodern periods.
COMM 486 Film Theory (4)
Professor Balides: Prerequisite: COMM 315. An advanced course focusing on
contemporary French, British and U.S. film theory. Topics include realism and
phenomenology, Russian Formalism, neoformalism, structuralism, narratology,
Marxism and ideology, psychoanalysis, cinema semiotics, feminism and
poststructuralism. Debates covered assess film as a text; the relationship between
film and the spectator; and the implications of cinema as a historical phenomenon,
including the status of digital cinema. Early, classical Hollywood, contemporary,
and avant-garde films screened. A required film journal helps students develop
analytical skills. Required for the Film Studies major or minor.
COMM 491, 492 - Independent Studies (1-3, 1-3)
Staff: Open to qualified juniors and seniors only.
COMM H499 H599 Honors Thesis (3, 4)
Staff: For especially qualified juniors and seniors with approval of the
department and the Honors Committee.
COMM 621, 622 Seminar in Communication Studies (3, 3)
Staff: Prerequisite: approval of instructor. An intensive study of a specific issue
or set of issues in rhetoric and public address, interpersonal communication, or
mass communication (e.g. propaganda, legal communication research), or of an
individual theorist (e.g. Aristotle, Kenneth Burke), or genre of discourse (e.g.
ideological argumentation, the rhetoric of social movements). May be taken
twice for credit on different topics.