Mass Culture and Modern Media: Fantasylands: Cinema, Spectatorship, and the Spatial Imagination

3 units

This course provides an introduction to cultural theories that are pertinent to the study of cinema, mass culture, and modernity. Rotating topics will highlight different aspects of cinema's relationship to popular culture, urbanism, modern technology, capitalism, and mass media. Students will encounter key theorists for understanding modern life and subjectivity, such as Marx, Freud, Foucault, Benjamin, and Raymond Williams. In addition, the course introduces core readings in the history and cultural theory of early cinema, which may include work by Miriam Hansen, Anne Friedberg, Tom Gunning, Charles Musser, Giuliana Bruno, Jacqueline Stewart, and others. Topics may include cinema and modernity, cinema and mass culture, cinema and leisure, cinema and urbanism, and cinema and consumer culture.