FILM STUDIES Department of English, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis IUPUI

The Film Studies Program offers undergraduate courses in the aesthetics, history, and theory of film. We study film that way that Literature courses study literature: how film uses a language of its own to create an experience for the spectator and how to understand that experience in all its dimensions. At the same time, we look at how film is influenced by culture, by the other arts, and by the industries and personalities that produce it. In short, Film Studies considers how movies are made as well as how movies make culture, spectators, ideologies.

We teach courses in theory, genres (such as film noir, horror, biopics, and musicals), directors (such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood), national cinemas; and topics such as Women and Film and African Americans and Film. There is also a world film history sequence, a course on film and literature, and courses on decades and eras in American film history. Graduate students may take courses for graduate credit, as well as develop Masters theses on film-related topics.

Students who want to pursue their interest in film outside of class are encouraged to participate in the Film Studies Club.