Cinema and media studies emphasizes the study of film, television, and related media in the context of global culture. It stresses the importance of historical and cultural awareness for effective interpretation of visual, audiovisual and verbal texts. Students earning a degree in cinema and media studies may pursue work at the MA and PhD levels in allied curricula in the humanities and the arts. They may aim for a broad range of careers including advertising, education, entertainment law, information technology, media archiving, museum work or public relations. Cinema and media studies majors often seek positions related to film, television and digital media production, marketing or distribution.

Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media trains students in the critical analysis of texts, seeking to understand how the rhetorical and aesthetic features of those texts— whether literary, visual, or theoretical—respond to and shape social values, attitudes, and beliefs. International in scope and interdisciplinary in orientation, our department programs emphasize intellectual breadth and foster intellectual initiative by maximizing students’ opportunities to design and focus on their own courses of study.

Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media trains students in the critical analysis of texts, seeking to understand how the rhetorical and aesthetic features of those texts— whether literary, visual, or theoretical—respond to and shape social values, attitudes, and beliefs. International in scope and interdisciplinary in orientation, our department programs emphasize intellectual breadth and foster intellectual initiative by maximizing students’ opportunities to design and focus on their own courses of study.

The Environmental Cultures and Values minor introduces students to historical and contemporary understandings of the environment through literature, the arts, philosophy, history, anthropology, political science and cultural geography. Taking a broad view of the meaning of "environment" (humans, the non-human world, built and natural environments, and all interactions among them), this interdisciplinary program prepares students for further study of environmental cultures and values and related professional paths (e.g., environmental NGO's, arts organizations, government, natural history writing).

The five year Ph.D. program concentrates on scholarship and research as preparation for teaching at the university or college level in Cinema and Media Studies. In addition, Ph.D. students emerge with: 1) an interdisciplinary understanding of the field from a humanistic perspective; 2) the ability to assess and implement diverse pedagogical techniques; 3) the ability to engage in primary research on a subject of their choosing; 4) a sense of the role of cinema and media in national identity, globalization, and other forms of transnationalism; 5) a familiarity with a range of historiographic practices in the field; 6) an awareness of the importance of media technologies as objects; 7) recognition of the crucial role of the aesthetic encounter 8) advanced reading knowledge in at least one language other than English. The faculty in the Department of Cinema and Media have particular strengths in world cinema; silent-era film; documentary cinema; Chinese cinemas; South Asian cinemas; media technologies; television studies; new media; and digital studies.

This graduate program emphasizes the study of film and related media from a humanistic perspective, within the broader context of global culture. While our curriculum centers on the medium of film, we understand the key concerns of film history and film theory as a productive horizon for assessing the phenomenal advances of digital and electronic media as well as a cinematic genealogy that stretches back to encompass the magic lantern, photography, sound recordings, and television among other technologically-produced art forms. At the core of our curricular goals, then, we emphasize the fundamental skills of cinema studies: an ability to interpret and clearly communicate the formal and stylistic elements of moving-image and audio-visual texts; a knowledgeable assessment of the canon of popular, art-cinema, and avant-garde cinemas, as well as animation and documentary forms; a capacity to engage the philosophical and social debates most germane to film theory since the early 20th century. Our curriculum stresses a comparative framework. In particular, students will be encouraged to assess our objects of study as they cross national borders, historical periods, and media forms.

The two year M.A. degree program prepares students for advanced work in Cinema and Media Studies, or for careers in teaching at the elementary, secondary, or junior college levels. In addition, M.A. students emerge with: 1) an interdisciplinary understanding of the field from a humanistic perspective; 2) awareness of the relationships between their scholarly practice and the communities in which we live; 3) basic reading knowledge in at least one language other than English; and 4) the ability to assess effective pedagogical techniques in the field. The faculty in the Department of Cinema and Media have particular strengths in world cinema; silent-era film; documentary cinema; Chinese cinemas; South Asian cinemas; media technologies; television studies; new media; and digital studies.