ScreenSite Data: Interdisciplinary Studies Syllabi

ScreenSite collected over 500 links to media-related syllabi. In our move from WordPress to a simple HTML Website in 2019, we have preserved all these data. We may occasionally add to them as ScreenSite moves forward, but we are not actively collecting new listings anymore.

Nonetheless, corrections and additions may be submitted via an online form.

The list below contains Interdisciplinary Studies syllabi links. For syllabi in other categories, please follow the links below.

Apologies in advance: The data may have gotten a bit dirty in the transition from WordPress to HTML.

152 Interdisciplinary Studies Syllabi

Sorted alphabetically.

A Passage to India: Introduction to Modern Indian Culture and Society

Course Description

This course is an introduction to modern Indian culture and society through films, documentaries, short stories, novels, poems, and journalistic writing. The principal focus is on the study of major cultural developments and social debates in the last sixty five years of history through the reading of literature and viewing of film clips. The focus will be on the transformations of gender and class issues, representation of nationhood, the idea of regional identities and the place of the city in individual and communal lives. The cultural and historical background will be provided in class lectures. The idea is to explore the "other Indias" that lurk behind our constructed notion of a homogeneous national culture. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-040-a-passage-to-india-introduction-to-modern-indian-culture-and-society-spring-2012/

Advanced Topics: Plotting Terror in European Culture

Course Description

This interdisciplinary course surveys modern European culture to disclose the alignment of literature, opposition, and revolution. Reaching back to the foundational representations of anarchism in nineteenth-century Europe (Kleist, Conrad) the curriculum extends through the literary and media representations of militant organizations in the 1970s and 80s (Italy's Red Brigade, Germany's Red Army Faction, and the Real Irish Republican Army). In the middle of the term students will have the opportunity to hear a lecture by Margarethe von Trotta, one of the most important filmmakers who has worked on terrorism. The course concludes with a critical examination of the ways that certain segments of European popular media have returned to the "radical chic" that many perceive to have exhausted itself more than two decades ago. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-061-advanced-topics-plotting-terror-in-european-culture-spring-2004/

American Soap Operas

Course Description

The television landscape has changed drastically in the past few years; nowhere is this more prevalent than in the American daytime serial drama, one of the oldest forms of television content. This class examines the history of these "soap operas" and their audiences by focusing on the production, consumption, and media texts of soaps. The class will include discussions of what makes soap operas a unique form, the history of the genre, current experimentation with transmedia storytelling, the online fan community, and comparisons between daytime dramas and primetime serials from 24 to Friday Night Lights, through a study of Procter & Gamble's As the World Turns. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-603-american-soap-operas-spring-2008/

At the Limit: Violence in Contemporary Representation

(last updated: 20 Jan 2015) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-840-at-the-limit-violence-in-contemporary-representation-fall-2013

Becoming Digital: Writing about Media Change

Course Description

"Becoming Digital" traces the change in practice, theory and possibility as mechanical and chemical media are augmented or supplanted by digital media. These changes will be grounded in a semester length study of "reports from the front." These reports, found and introduced by students throughout the semester, are the material produced by and about soldiers and civilians on the battlefield from the introduction of wet photography during the Crimean and Civil Wars to contemporary digital content posted daily to Web 2.0 sites from areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly even the games and simulations they've inspired. Students will work through the ethical, aesthetic, technical and cultural problems raised by the primary content and secondary readings in three papers, a group project written with Inform 7, a presentation, and frequent discussion. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-784-becoming-digital-writing-about-media-change-fall-2009/

Comedy & Satire

Course by George J. Wilkerson at Southern New Hampshire University.. From the Website: "This course introduces students to an important type of Western literature that is found in almost every genre from drama (Aristophanes, Moliere, Wilde and Shaw) to poetry (Horace, Juvenal, Pope, Byron, and Frost) to stories and novels (Aesop, Chaucer, Voltaire, Gogol, Benson, Waugh and Roth). These authors and many others –including major authors writing today—have developed comedy and satire into an effective literary tool for looking at and critiquing their society. Each instructor will focus on a major period or target of this literature –for example, the Eighteenth Century or contemporary times or the medical, military, religious, or political profession. In all classes the emphasis will be on the differences between comedy and satire, their methods, and their purposes." (last updated: 3 Jun 2014) http://drwrite.com/SNHU/344/syllabus344.shtml

Common Sense Reasoning for Interactive Applications

Course Description

This course will explore the state of the art in common sense knowledge, and class projects will design and build interfaces that can exploit this knowledge to make more usable and helpful interfaces. This year's theme will be about how common sense knowledge differs in different languages and cultures, and how machine understanding of this knowledge can help increase communication between people, and between people and machines. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-962-common-sense-reasoning-for-interactive-applications-fall-2006/

Communicating in Cyberspace

Course Description

This class covers the analysis, design, implementation and testing of various forms of digital communication based on group collaboration. Students are encouraged to think about the Web and other new digital interactive media not just in terms of technology but also broader issues such as language (verbal and visual), design, information architecture, communication and community. Students work in small groups on a semester-long project of their choice. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-785-communicating-in-cyberspace-fall-2003/

Communication Law

Online syllabus for course at Widener University School of Law, Pennsylvania.. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.freewebs.com/wmsloane/LAW867.html

Communication Law & Ethics

Online syllabus for undergraduate course at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania.. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.freewebs.com/wmsloane/COM248.html

Communication, Culture, Consciousness

John M. Sloop, Dept. of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt University. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Comm/Courses/ccc.htm

Composing with Computers I (Electronic Music Composition)

Course Description

This class explores sound and what can be done with it. Sources are recorded from students' surroundings - sampled and electronically generated (both analog and digital). Assignments include composing with the sampled sounds, feedback, and noise, using digital signal processing (DSP), convolution, algorithms, and simple mixing. The class focuses on sonic and compositional aspects rather than technology, math, or acoustics, though these are examined in varying detail. Students complete weekly composition and listening assignments; material for the latter is drawn from sound art, experimental electronica, conventional and non-conventional classical electronic works, popular music, and previous students' compositions. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-361-composing-with-computers-i-electronic-music-composition-spring-2008/

Computational Camera and Photography

Course Description

A computational camera attempts to digitally capture the essence of visual information by exploiting the synergistic combination of task-specific optics, illumination, sensors and processing. In this course we will study this emerging multi-disciplinary field at the intersection of signal processing, applied optics, computer graphics and vision, electronics, art, and online sharing through social networks. If novel cameras can be designed to sample light in radically new ways, then rich and useful forms of visual information may be recorded — beyond those present in traditional photographs. Furthermore, if computational process can be made aware of these novel imaging models, them the scene can be analyzed in higher dimensions and novel aesthetic renderings of the visual information can be synthesized. We will discuss and play with thermal cameras, multi-spectral cameras, high-speed, and 3D range-sensing cameras and camera arrays. We will learn about opportunities in scientific and medical imaging, mobile-phone based photography, camera for HCI and sensors mimicking animal eyes. We will learn about the complete camera pipeline. In several hands-on projects we will build physical imaging prototypes and understand how each stage of the imaging process can be manipulated. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-531-computational-camera-and-photography-fall-2009/

Conceptual Camera and Photography

(last updated: 11 Oct 2018) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-531-computational-camera-and-photography-fall-2009/

Creating Video Games

Course Description

CMS.611J / 6.073 Creating Video Games is a class that introduces students to the complexities of working in small, multidisciplinary teams to develop video games. Students will learn creative design and production methods, working together in small teams to design, develop, and thoroughly test their own original digital games. Design iteration across all aspects of video game development (game design, audio design, visual aesthetics, fiction and programming) will be stressed. Students will also be required to focus test their games, and will need to support and challenge their game design decisions with appropriate focus testing and data analysis. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-611j-creating-video-games-fall-2014/

Critical History of Radio/TV (Fall 2013)

(last updated: 20 Sep 2018) http://mariasuzanneboyd.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/critical-history-of-radiotv-syllabus-fall-2013.docx

Cultural Performances of Asia

Course Description

This course examines cultural performances of Asia, including both traditional and contemporary forms, in a variety of genres. Students will explore the communicative power of performances with attention to the ways performers, media, cultural settings, and audiences interact. The representation of cultural difference is considered and how it is altered through processes of globalization. Performances are viewed live when possible, but the course also relies on video, audio, and online materials as necessary. There are no prerequisites for this course and it is taught in English. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-067j-cultural-performances-of-asia-fall-2005/

Cultural Resistance

Antonio Lopez, John Cabot University (last updated: 11 Oct 2018) http://www.openmediaeducation.net/cms320/files/2017/01/Syllabus-SP17-1.pdf

Development of Jewish Humor, The

Course by Edward Portnoy at Rutgers University.. From the Website: "Known historically as the “People of the Book,” the Jews are perhaps better known in the modern era as the “People of the Joke.” With a history of popular humor production that dates from the 19th century onward, Jewish comedy writers contributed heavily to the entertainment world in a variety of locales. The comedy industry, particularly in the United States, would come to be dominated by Jewish writers, whose cultural backgrounds frequently played a role in their comedic products. This course will survey the development of Jewish humor as a cultural phenomenon during the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing mainly on the history of American Jewish comedic output, but also delving into Jewish material from Eastern Europe, the USSR, and Israel. By analyzing the development of Jewish humor, we will be able to gain insight into the variety of Jewish cultures and the ways in which they are affected by historical valences, as well as issues such as acculturation, assimilation, and methods employed in matters of cultural maintenance." (last updated: 18 Sep 2016) http://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/courses/517-syllabus-jewish-humor-396/file

Digital Anthropology

Course Highlights

This class contains excellent project proposals, highlighting possible future technologies in digital artifacts.

Course Description

Digital Anthropology is a Spring 2003 applied social science and media arts seminar, surveying the blossoming arena of digital-artifact enabled experimental sociology/anthropology. We will emphasize on both (a) Technology Testbeds – systematically deploying research lab prototypes and corporate pre-production products in a sample human organizational population and carefully observing the social consequences, and (b) Sociometrics – using digital artifacts to better observe and measure the complex social reality of interesting human systems. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-966-digital-anthropology-spring-2003/

Digital Poetry

Course Description

This class investigates theory and practice of digital or new media poetry with emphasis on workshop review of digital poetry created by students. Each week students examine published examples of digital poetry in a variety of forms including but not limited to soundscapes, hypertext poetry, animation, code poems, interactive games, location-based poems using handheld devices, digital video and wikis. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-772-digital-poetry-fall-2005/

Digital Typography

Course Highlights

This class was one of the earliest classes taught in the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab. This class from 1997 deals with the ubiquitous nature of type and typography, and how it might be modified and redesigned in the digital age.

Course Description

This class introduces studies in the algorithmic manipulation of type as word, symbol, and form. Problems covered will include semantic filtering, inherently unstable letterforms, and spoken letters. The history and traditions of typography, and their entry into the digital age, will be studied. Weekly assignments using Java® will explore new ways of looking at and manipulating type. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-962-digital-typography-fall-1997/

Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of a World in Motion

Course Description

In this course, you will be exposed to the work of many great documentary photographers and photojournalists, as well as to writing about the documentary tradition. Further, throughout the term, you will hone your photographic skills and 'eye,' and you will work on a photo documentary project of your own, attempting to reduce a tiny area of the moving world to a set of still images that convey what the viewer needs to know about what you saw—without hearing the sounds, smelling the odors, experiencing what was happening outside the viewfinder, and without seeing the motion. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-749-documentary-photography-and-photojournalism-still-images-of-a-world-in-motion-spring-2016/

Documenting Culture

Course Description

How — and why — do people seek to capture everyday life on film? What can we learn from such films? This course challenges distinctions commonly made between documentary and ethnographic films to consider how human cultural life is portrayed in both. It considers the interests, which motivate such filmmakers ranging from curiosity about "exotic" people to a concern with capturing "real life" to a desire for advocacy. Students will view documentaries about people both in the U.S. and abroad and will consider such issues as the relationship between film images and "reality," the tensions between art and observation, and the ethical relationship between filmmakers and those they film. (last updated: 23 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/anthropology/21a-337j-documenting-culture-spring-2004/

DV Lab: Documenting Science Through Video and New Media

Course Description

This course is an introductory exploration of documentary film theory and production, focusing on documentaries about science, engineering, and related fields. Students engage in digital video production as well as social and media analysis of science documentaries. Readings are drawn from social studies of science as well as from documentary film theory. The courses uses documentary video making as a tool to explore the worlds of science and engineering, as well as a tool for thinking analytically about media itself and the social worlds in which science is embedded. The course includes a hands-on lab component devoted to digital video production, in addition to classroom lectures and in-class film screenings. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/anthropology/21a-550j-dv-lab-documenting-science-through-video-and-new-media-fall-2012/

Education Through Feature Film

Instructor Randy L. Hoover, Youngstown State University . (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://cc.ysu.edu/~rlhoover/ClassConnections/syl_flim.html

Experiments in Digital Television

Professor Pat Hanrahan, Serge Rutman, and Philipp Slusallek, Stanford University . (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448-98-fall/

Expository Writing: Analyzing Mass Media

Course Description

This course focuses on developing and refining the skills that will you need to express your voice more effectively as an academic writer. As a focus for our writing this semester, this course explores what it means to live in the age of mass media. We will debate the power of popular American media in shaping our ideas of self, family and community and in defining social issues. Throughout the semester, students will focus on writing as a process of drafting and revising to create essays that are lively, clear, engaging and meaningful to a wider audience. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-730-4-expository-writing-analyzing-mass-media-spring-2001/

Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials

Fair-use advice for educators from the University of Texas. Includes summary of the four fair-use factors.. (last updated: 27 Sep 2018) http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/copypol2.html

Film History and Theory

This course surveys key concepts and debates in film and media theory. Ranging from classical and 1970s film theory to cultural studies interventions, digital media theory, and more recent theoretical trends, it will examine models of medium specificity, cinematic narration, spectatorship, interpretative meaning, and ideology. Chris Cagle, Temple Univ.. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://astro.temple.edu/~ccagle/FilmTheorySpr10.htm

Film, Art, and Literature

Professor Kimberly M. Radek, Illinois Valley Community College'. This course looks closely at the relationship of film, visual art, and literature, focusing most specifically upon the interaction between them from a historical perspective, i.e., how this relationship has changed as the art forms have changed since their inception. Required comparative readings and film and art viewings are a component of this course. (last updated: 14 Aug 2011) http://www2.ivcc.edu/flm2010/Syllabus.html

Forms of Western Narrative

Course Description

This class will investigate the ways in which the formal aspects of Western storytelling in various media have shaped both fantasies and perceptions, making certain understandings of experience possible through the selection, arrangement, and processing of narrative material. Surveying the field chronologically across the major narrative genres and sub-genres from Homeric epic through the novel and across media to include live performance, film, and video games, we will be examining the ways in which new ideologies and psychological insights become available through the development of various narrative techniques and new technologies. Emphasis will be placed on the generic conventions of story-telling as well as on literary and cultural issues, the role of media and modes of transmission, the artistic significance of the chosen texts and their identity as anthropological artifacts whose conventions and assumptions are rooted in particular times, places, and technologies. Authors will include: Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Christian evangelists, Marie de France, Cervantes, La Clos, Poe, Lang, Cocteau, Disney-Pixar, and Maxis-Electronic Arts, with theoretical readings in Propp, Bakhtin, Girard, Freud, and Marx. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-012-forms-of-western-narrative-spring-2004/

From Print to Digital: Technologies of the Word, 1450-Present

Course Description

There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450 to the present. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as English chapbooks, Inkan knotted and dyed strings, late nineteenth-century recording devices, and newspapers online today. We will also visit a rare book library and make a poster on a hand-set printing press. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-418-from-print-to-digital-technologies-of-the-word-1450-present-fall-2005/

Fundamentals of Computational Media Design

Course Description

This class covers the history of 20th century art and design from the perspective of the technologist. Methods for visual analysis, oral critique, and digital expression are introduced. Class projects this term use the OLPC XO (One Laptop Per Child) laptop, Csound and Python software. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-110-fundamentals-of-computational-media-design-fall-2008/

Future Digital Media

Instructor: Paul Diefenbach, Drexel University. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~pjd37/DIGM_Future/index.html

Game Design

Course Description An historical examination and analysis of the evolution and development of games and game mechanics. Topics include a large breadth of genres and types of games, including sports, game shows, games of chance, schoolyard games, board games, roleplaying games, and digital games. Students submit essays documenting research and analysis of a variety of traditional and eclectic games. Project teams required to design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-608-game-design-spring-2008/

Game Design

Course Description

This course provides practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. Students cover the texts, tools, references and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role–playing games. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-608-game-design-fall-2010/

Game Design

Course Description

This course is built around practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. It provides students the texts, tools, references, and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to better understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Covers various genres and types of games, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role-playing games. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-608-game-design-spring-2014/

Games and Culture

Course Description

This course examines the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of digital games. Topics include the socio-technical aspects of digital gaming, embodiment and space, communities, spectatorship and performance, gender, race, sexuality, e-sports and sports games, and the politics and economics of production processes, including co-creation and intellectual property. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-616j-games-and-culture-fall-2014/

Games for Social Change

Course Description

Run as a workshop, students collaborate in teams to design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. Through readings, discussion, and presentations, we explore principles of game design and the social history of games. Guest speakers from academia, industry, the non-profit sector, and the gaming community contribute unique and diverse perspectives. Course culminates in an end of semester open house to showcase our games. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-615-games-for-social-change-fall-2013/

German Culture, Media, and Society

(last updated: 18 Sep 2016) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-414-german-culture-media-and-society-fall-2006/

German Culture, Media, and Society

Course Description

The topic for Fall 2006 is short film and radio plays. This course investigates current trends and topics in German literary, theater, film, television, radio, and other media arts productions. Students analyze media texts in the context of their production, reception, and distribution as well as the public debates initiated by these works. The topic for Fall 2006 is German Short Film, a popular format that represents most recent trends in film production, and German Radio Art, a striving genre that includes experimental radio plays, sound art, and audio installations. Special attention will be given to the representation of German minorities, contrasted by their own artistic expressions reflecting changes in identity and a new political voice. Students have the opportunity to discuss course topics with a writer, filmmaker, and/or media artist from Germany. The course is taught in German. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-414-german-culture-media-and-society-fall-2006/

German IV

Course Description

This course focuses on development of interpretive skills, using literary texts (B. Brecht, S. Zweig) and contemporary media texts (film, TV broadcasts, Web materials). The emphasis is on discussion and exploration of cultural topics in their current social, political, and historical context via hypermedia documentaries. It also covers further refinement of oral and written expression and expansion of communicative competence in practical everyday situations. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-404-german-iv-spring-2005/

Germany Today: Intensive Study of German Language and Culture

Course Description

Prepares students for working and living in German-speaking countries. Focus on current political, social, and cultural issues, using newspapers, journals, TV, radio broadcasts, and Web sources from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Emphasis on speaking, writing, and reading skills for professional contexts. Activities include: oral presentations, group discussions, guest lectures, and interviews with German speakers. No listeners. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-405-germany-today-intensive-study-of-german-language-and-culture-january-iap-2011/

Godzilla and the Bullet Train: Technology and Culture in Modern Japan

Course Description

This course explores how and why Japan, a late-comer to modernization, emerged as an industrial power and the world's second-richest nation, notwithstanding its recent difficulties. We are particularly concerned with the historical development of technology in Japan especially after 1945, giving particular attention to the interplays between business, ideology, technology, and culture. We will discuss key historical phenomena that symbolize modern Japan as a technological power in the world; specific examples to be discussed in class include kamikaze aircraft, the Shinkansen high-speed bullet train, Godzilla, and anime. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/science-technology-and-society/sts-s28-godzilla-and-the-bullet-train-technology-and-culture-in-modern-japan-fall-2005/

High-Intermediate Academic Communication

Course Description

The goal of this course is to review grammar and develop vocabulary building strategies to refine oral and written expression. Speaking and writing assignments are designed to expand communicative competence. Assignments are based on models and materials drawn from contemporary media (newspapers and magazines, television, Web). The models, materials, topics and assignments vary from semester to semester. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-213-high-intermediate-academic-communication-spring-2004/

History of Media and Technology

Course Description

History of Media and Technology addresses the mutually influential histories of communications media and technological development, focusing on the shift from analog to digital cultures that began mid-century and continues to the present. The approach the series takes to the study of media and technology is a multifaceted one that includes theoretical and philosophical works, histories canonical and minority, literature and art, as well as hands-on production issues toward the advancement of student projects and research papers. The topic for this term is Eternal War. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-876-history-of-media-and-technology-spring-2005/

History of Media and Technology: Sound, the Minority Report -- Radical Music of the Past 100 Years

Course Description

This course looks at the history of avant-garde and electronic music from the early twentieth century to the present. The class is organized as a theory and production seminar for which students may either produce audio/multimedia projects or a research paper. It engages music scholarship, cultural criticism, studio production, and multi-media development, such as recent software, sound design for film and games, and sound installation. Sound as a media tool for communication and sound as a form of artistic expression are subjects under discussion. The artists' work reviewed in the course includes selections from audio innovators such as the Italian Futurists, Edgard Varèse, John Cage, King Tubby, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Afrika Bambaataa, Kraftwerk, Merzbow, Aphex Twin, Rza, Björk, and others. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-876-history-of-media-and-technology-sound-the-minority-report-radical-music-of-the-past-100-years-spring-2006/

Holographic Imaging

Course Description

MAS.450 is a laboratory course about holography and holographic imaging. This course teaches holography from a scientific and analytical point of view, moving from interference and diffraction to imaging of single points to the display of three-dimensional images. Using a "hands-on" approach, students explore the underlying physical phenomena that make holograms work, as well as designing laboratory setups to make their own images. The course also teaches mathematical techniques that allow the behavior of holography to be understood, predicted, and harnessed. Holography today brings together the fields of optics, chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, visualization, three-dimensional display, and human perception in a unique and comprehensive way. As such, MAS.450 offers interesting and useful exposure to a wide range of principles and ideas. As a course satisfying the Institute Laboratory Requirement, MAS.450 teaches about science, scientific research, and the scientific method through observation and exploration, hinting at the excitement that inventors feel before they put their final equations to paper. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-450-holographic-imaging-spring-2003/

Imaging the City: The Place of Media in City Design and Development

Course Description

Kevin Lynch's landmark volume, The Image of the City (1960), emphasized the perceptual characteristics of the urban environment, stressing the ways that individuals mentally organize their own sensory experience of cities. Increasingly, however, city imaging is supplemented and constructed by exposure to visual media, rather than by direct sense experience of urban realms. City images are not static, but subject to constant revision and manipulation by a variety of media-savvy individuals and institutions. In recent years, urban designers (and others) have used the idea of city image proactively -- seeking innovative ways to alter perceptions of urban, suburban, and regional areas. City imaging, in this sense, is the process of constructing visually-based narratives about the potential of places. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/urban-studies-and-planning/11-947-imaging-the-city-the-place-of-media-in-city-design-and-development-fall-1998/

Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice

Course Description

This course explores the properties of non-linear, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and of storyline is complemented by theoretical texts about authorship/readership, plot/story, properties of digital media and hypertext. Questions that will be addressed in this course include: How can we define 'non-linearity/multi-linearity', 'interactivity', 'narrative'. To what extend are these aspects determined by the text, the reader, the digital format? What kinds of narratives are especially suited for a nonlinear/ interactive format? Are there stories that can only be told in a digital format? What can we learn from early non-digital examples of non-linear and interactive story telling? (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-765j-interactive-and-non-linear-narrative-theory-and-practice-spring-2004/

Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice

Course Description

This course covers techniques of creating narratives that take advantage of the flexibility of form offered by the computer. The course studies the structural properties of book-based narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time and of storyline. The class analyzes the structure and evaluates the literary qualities of computer-based narratives including hypertexts, adventure games, and classic artificial intelligence programs like Eliza. With this base, students use authoring systems to model a variety of narrative techniques and to create their own fictions. Knowledge of programming is helpful but not necessary. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-765j-interactive-and-non-linear-narrative-theory-and-practice-spring-2006/

Intercultural Communication

Ananda Mitra, Wake Forest University. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.wfu.edu/~ananda/intcom2.html

Interrogative Design Workshop

Course Description

"Parrhesia" was an Athenian right to frank and open speaking, the right that, like the First Amendment, demands a "fearless speaker" who must challenge political powers with criticism and unsolicited advice. Can designer and artist respond today to such a democratic call and demand? Is it possible to do so despite the (increasing) restrictions imposed on our liberties today? Can the designer or public artist operate as a proactive "parrhesiatic" agent and contribute to the protection, development and dissemination of "fearless speaking" in Public Space? (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-370-interrogative-design-workshop-fall-2005/

Introduction to Civic Media

Course Description

This course examines civic media in comparative, transnational and historical perspectives through the use of various theoretical tools, research approaches, and project design methods. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-360-introduction-to-civic-media-fall-2012/

Introduction to Doing Research in Media Arts and Sciences

Course Description

This course is intended for students pursuing research projects at the Media Laboratory. Topics include Media Lab research areas, documenting research progress, ethical issues in research; patents, copyrights, intellectual property, and giving oral, written, and online presentations of results. A final oral presentation is required. Enrollment limited with preference given to students in the Media Arts and Sciences freshman program. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-111-introduction-to-doing-research-in-media-arts-and-sciences-spring-2011/

Introduction to Media Studies

Course Description

Introduction to Media Studies is designed for students who have grown up in a rapidly changing global multimedia environment and want to become more literate and critical consumers and producers of culture. Through an interdisciplinary comparative and historical lens, the course defines "media" broadly as including oral, print, theatrical, photographic, broadcast, cinematic, and digital cultural forms and practices. The course looks at the nature of mediated communication, the functions of media, the history of transformations in media and the institutions that help define media's place in society. Over the course of the semester we explore different theoretical perspectives on the role and power of media in society in influencing our social values, political beliefs, identities and behaviors. Students also have the opportunity to analyze specific media texts (such as films and television shows) and explore the meaning of the changes that occur when a particular narrative is adapted into different media forms. We look at the ways in which the politics of class, gender and race influence both the production and reception of media. To represent different perspectives on media, several guest speakers also present lectures. Through the readings, lectures, and discussions as well as their own writing and oral presentations, students have multiple opportunities to engage with critical debates in the field as well as explore the role of media in their own lives. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-015-introduction-to-media-studies-fall-2003/

Introduction to Media Studies

Course Description

Introduction to Media Studies

Course Description

This course provides a critical analysis of mass media in our culture. Various types of media such as books, films, video games, and online interactions will be discussed and reviewed. This course will also evaluate how information and ideas travel between people on a large scale (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-100-introduction-to-media-studies-fall-2014/

Introduction to Photography and Related Media

Course Description

This course provides practical instruction in the fundamentals of analog and digital SLR and medium/large format camera operation, film exposure and development, black and white darkroom techniques, digital imaging, and studio lighting. This semester we will explore the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences for our theme- and site-specific term project, which provides opportunities to develop technical skills and experimental photographic techniques, and for personal artistic exploration. Final projects will be presented on site in exhibition format. Work in progress is continuously presented and discussed in a critical forum. Lectures, readings, visiting professionals, group discussions, and site visits encourage aesthetic appreciation of the medium and a deeper understanding of our semester theme, as well as a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. (last updated: 23 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-341-introduction-to-photography-and-related-media-fall-2007/

Introduction to Videogame Studies

Course Description

This course offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of videogames as texts through an examination of their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. Students play and analyze videogames while reading current research and theory from a variety of sources in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and industry. Assignments focus on game analysis in the context of the theories discussed in class. Class meetings involve regular reading, writing, and presentation exercises. No prior programming experience required. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-300-introduction-to-videogame-studies-fall-2011/

Islam/Media

Course Description

This course is an introduction to Islam from the perspective of media and sound studies, intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam in its various manifestations has had a complex relationship with media. While much contemporary writing focuses on Islam in the media, this course explores how many aspects of Islamic practice and thinking might be understood as media technologies that facilitate the inscription, storage and transmission of knowledge. Central questions include: How do Islam and media technologies relate? What kinds of practices of inscription and transmission characterize Islam in all its varieties across time and place? How might Islamic thought and practice be understood in light of databases, networks, and audiovisual sensation? Given the rich diversity in Islam historically and geographically, emphasis will be placed on these interconnected but divergent practices from the earliest revelations of the Qur'an to contemporary Islamist political movements, with geographies spanning from Indonesia to the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Europe and North America. In addition to exploring these themes through reading and writing, students will be encouraged to complete course assignments and projects in media, using audiovisual documentary or composition as a means of responding to the course themes. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-289-islam-media-spring-2015/

Japanese Literature and Cinema

(last updated: 16 Sep 2016) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-065-japanese-literature-and-cinema-fall-2013/

Julia Lesage, Course Material

Julia Lesage, University of Oregon. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jlesage/Juliafolder/INDEX2.HTML

Major Authors: Melville and Morrison

Course Description

This seminar provides intensive study of texts by two American authors (Herman Melville, 1819-1891, and Toni Morrison, 1931-) who, using lyrical, radically innovative prose, explore in different ways epic notions of American identity. Focusing on Melville's Typee (1846), Moby-Dick (1851), and The Confidence-Man (1857) and Morrison's Sula (1973), Beloved (1987),Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1998), the class will address their common concerns with issues of gender, race, language, and nationhood. Be prepared to read deeply (i.e. a small number of texts with considerable care), to draw on a variety of sources in different media, and to employ them in creative research, writing, and multimedia projects. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-705-major-authors-melville-and-morrison-fall-2003/

Major Media Texts

Course Description

This class does intensive close study and analysis of historically significant media "texts" that have been considered landmarks or have sustained extensive critical and scholarly discussion. Such texts may include oral epic, story cycles, plays, novels, films, opera, television drama and digital works. The course emphasizes close reading from a variety of contextual and aesthetic perspectives. The syllabus varies each year, and may be organized around works that have launched new modes and genres, works that reflect upon their own media practices, or on stories that migrate from one medium to another. At least one of the assigned texts is collaboratively taught, and visiting lectures and discussions are a regular feature of the subject. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-796-major-media-texts-fall-2006/

Media and Methods: Seeing and Expression

Course Description

In this course students create digital visual images and analyze designs from historical and theoretical perspectives with an emphasis on art and design, examining visual experience in broad terms, and from the perspectives of both creators and viewers. The course addresses key topics such as: image making as a cognitive and perceptual practice, the production of visual significance and meaning, and the role of technology in creating and understanding digitally produced images. Students will be given design problems growing out of their reading and present solutions using technologies such as the Adobe Creative Suite and/or similar applications. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-405-media-and-methods-seeing-and-expression-spring-2013/

Media and Methods: Sound

Course Description

This course explores the ways in which humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It examines how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally. It describes the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Students address questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing. There is a particular focus on how the sound/noise boundary is imagined, created and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples will be provided. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. At MIT, this course is limited to 20 students. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-407-media-and-methods-sound-fall-2012/

Media and the Law

William Martin Sloane, Wilson College. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sloane/MCM302.html

MEDIA CRITICISM (Television and Radio Criticism)

Instructor Foulger, BROOKLYN COLLEGE. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://davis.foulger.info/brooklyn/summer2009/mediacriticism/compactsyllabus.htm

Media Education and the Marketplace

Course Description

This instance of "Media, Education, and the Marketplace" focuses on the rise of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the age of globalization, specifically examining its effect and potential in developing nations across the world. In particular, the class will focus on the following three components:

"Media" – ICTs, specifically the dramatic rise in use of the Internet over the past twenty years, have "globalized" the world and created opportunities where very few have been available in the past. We are entering a phase where an individual can significantly improve his or her own economical, political, and social circumstances with just a computer and Internet connection. This course investigate these profound developments through current research and case studies.
"Education" – With projects such as MIT's OpenCourseWare, the major players in the world are beginning to understand the true power of ICTs in development. Throughout this class, we examine projects that harness the benefits of ICTs to create positive social change around the world.
"Marketplace" – The focus is on the developing regions of the world. Specifically, the term "digital divide" is tossed around in everyday language, but what does it really mean? Is there an international digital divide, a national digital divide, or both? Should we try to bridge this divide, and how have past attempts succeeded and (for the most part) failed? Why? These are all questions that are asked throughout this course.

This course has a very unique pedagogy, which is discussed in more detail in the syllabussection. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-034-media-education-and-the-marketplace-fall-2005/

Media in Cultural Context

Course Description

This course explores the international trade in television text, considering the ways in which 'foreign' programs find places within 'domestic' schedules. Looking at the life television texts maintain outside of their home market, this course examines questions of globalization and national cultures of production and reception. Students will be introduced to a range of positions about the nature of international textual trade, including economic arguments about the structuring of international markets and ethnographic studies about the role imported content plays in the formation of hybrid national identities. Students will be encouraged to consider the role American content is made to play in non-American markets. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-715-media-in-cultural-context-spring-2007/

Media in Cultural Context: Popular Readerships

Course Description

What is the history of popular reading in the Western world? How does widespread access to print relate to distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, between good taste and bad judgment, and between men and women readers? This course will introduce students to the broad history of popular reading and to controversies about taste and gender that have characterized its development. Our grounding in historical material will help make sense of our main focus: recent developments in the theory and practice of reading, including fan-fiction, Oprah's book club, comics, hypertext, mass-market romance fiction, mega-chain bookstores, and reader response theory. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-715-media-in-cultural-context-popular-readerships-fall-2007/

Media in the Arab World

Mona Eltahawy. (last updated: 18 Sep 2016) https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/inaf-257-fall2011/files/INAF-257-Media-in-the-Middle-East-Syllabus-Fall-2013.pdf

Media in Transition

Course Description

This course centers on historical eras in which the form and function of media technologies were radically transformed. It includes consideration of the "Gutenberg Revolution," the rise of modern mass media, and the "digital revolution," among other case studies of media transformation and cultural change. Readings are in cultural and social history and historiographic method. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-801-media-in-transition-fall-2012/

Media Law and Ethics

Ted Schwalbe, State University of New York. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.fredonia.edu/department/communication/schwalbe/cm353syl.htm

Media Technology and City Design and Development

Course Highlights

This class is one of the earliest studios at MIT to carry on the work of the West Philadelphia Landscape Project started at the University of Pennsylvania. It contains a full description of the project in the syllabus, and examples of the student work in the projects section.

Course Description

Media Technology and City Design and Development

Course Highlights

This class teaches digital tools to urban designers, showing them how these tools can be effective in their work in communities. It includes tutorials on these tools, and a list of resources helpful to learning digital storytelling techniques. This class is run through the Center for Reflective Community Practice (CRCP), which is the newest Center in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. CRCP is built on the 25-year legacy of Mel King and the Community Fellows Program at MIT. Four central goals orient CRCP's work: helping people know what they know, improving community practice through reflection and learning, building grounded knowledge from reflection on practice, and developing tools and technology to support this work. We have examined the last several years of work and learning, and identified a set of questions that are critical for carrying out these goals. Through two broad areas of work, direct work with communities, and making practitioner knowledge accessible, we seek to advance our learning around those questions. Over the next several years, we see CRCP moving to the next level in our work: to function as a network of growing experience, knowledge, and tools for helping struggling communities use their knowledge resources as capital in the improvement of community life.

Course Description

This workshop explores the potential of media technology and the Internet to enhance communication and transform city design and community development in inner-city neighborhoods. The class introduces a variety of methods for describing or representing a place and its residents, for simulating actions and changes, for presenting visions of the future, and for engaging multiple actors in the process of envisioning change and guiding action. Students will engage one neighborhood, meet real people working on real projects, put theory into practice, and reflect on insights gained in the process. This year the course will examine what it means to be an urban designer/planner and how to create a digital teaching tool (using digital storytelling) that supports others in learning about the relationship between design and planning professionals, on the one hand, and members of the communities they serve, on the other. What is the nature of the knowledge that resides in a community and how can designers and planners learn about, tap, and use that knowledge? What is the relationship between community organizing and urban design and planning? What are the relationships between you as a professional, the place(s) in which you work, and the values and care you bring to that work? We will explore these themes in the context of Camfield Estates in Lower Roxbury, MA and its participation in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Demonstration Disposition Project. There have been many stories written about Camfield Estates' participation in the Demonstration Disposition project, for it has been widely regarded as a model of success. There are two stories that have not yet been told, however: the story of the residents who organized the community and the story of the architects and planners who participated in the project. This course will use digital storytelling to reconstruct and connect these two stories. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/urban-studies-and-planning/11-310j-media-technology-and-city-design-and-development-fall-2002/

Media, Culture and Society

Antonio Lopez, John Cabot University (last updated: 11 Oct 2018) http://www.openmediaeducation.net/com220-sp14/

Media, Education, and the Marketplace

Course Highlights

This course features a complete set of video lectures. The lectures include talks by a variety of educators and visionaries addressing the course themes.

Course Description

How can we harness the emerging forms of interactive media to enhance the learning process? Professor Miyagawa and prominent guest speakers will explore a broad range of issues on new media and learning - technical, social, and business. Concrete examples of use of media will be presented as case studies. One major theme, though not the only one, is that today's youth, influenced by video games and other emerging interactive media forms, are acquiring a fundamentally different attitude towards media. Media is, for them, not something to be consumed, but also to be created. This has broad consequences for how we design media, how the young are taught in schools, and how mass media markets will need to adjust. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-930-media-education-and-the-marketplace-fall-2001/

Modern Art and Mass Culture

Course Description

This class provides an introduction to modern art and theories of modernism and postmodernism. It focuses on the way artists use the tension between fine art and mass culture to mobilize a critique of both. We will examine objects of visual art, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, prints, performance and video. These objects will be viewed in their interaction with advertising, caricature, comics, graffiti, television, fashion, folk art, and "primitive" art. (last updated: 23 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-602-modern-art-and-mass-culture-spring-2012/

Modern Drama

Course Description

This course analyzes major modern plays featuring works by Shaw, Pirandello, Beckett, Brecht, Williams, Soyinka, Hwang, Churchill, Wilson, Frayn, Stoppard, Deveare Smith, and Kushner. The class particularly considers performance, sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and the role of theater in the world of modern multimedia. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-486-modern-drama-spring-2006/

Music and Technology (Contemporary History and Aesthetics)

Course Description

This course is an investigation into the history and aesthetics of music and technology as deployed in experimental and popular musics from the 19th century to the present. Through original research, creative hands-on projects, readings, and lectures, the following topics will be explored. The history of radio, audio recording, and the recording studio, as well as the development of musique concrète and early electronic instruments. The creation and extension of musical interfaces by composers such as Harry Partch, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, and others. The exploration of electromagnetic technologies in pickups, and the development of dub, hip-hop, and turntablism. The history and application of the analog synthesizer, from the Moog modular to the Roland TR-808. The history of computer music, including music synthesis and representation languages. Contemporary practices in circuit bending, live electronics, and electro-acoustic music, as well as issues in copyright and intellectual property, will also be examined. No prerequisites. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-380-music-and-technology-contemporary-history-and-aesthetics-fall-2009/

Music and Technology: Algorithmic and Generative Music

Course Description

This course examines the history, techniques, and aesthetics of mechanical and computer-aided approaches to algorithmic music composition and generative music systems. Through creative hands-on projects, readings, listening assignments, and lectures, students will explore a variety of historical and contemporary approaches. Diverse tools and systems will be employed, including applications in Python, MIDI, Csound, SuperCollider, and Pure Data. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-380-music-and-technology-algorithmic-and-generative-music-spring-2010/

Music and Technology: Recording Techniques and Audio Production

Course Description

This course covers foundations, practices, and creative techniques in audio recording and music production, including microphone selection and placement, mixing, mastering, signal processing, automation, and digital audio workstations. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-380-music-and-technology-recording-techniques-and-audio-production-spring-2012/

Music Since 1960

Course Description

This course begins with the premise that the 1960s mark a great dividing point in the history of 20th century Western musical culture, and explores the ways in which various social and artistic concerns of composers, performers, and listeners have evolved since that decade. It focuses on works by classical composers from around the world. Topics include the impact of rock, as it developed during the 1960s - 70s; the concurrent emergence of post serial, neotonal, minimalist, and new age styles; the globalization of Western musical traditions; the impact of new technologies; and the significance of music video, video games, and other versions of multimedia. The course interweaves discussion of these topics with close study of seminal musical works, evenly distributed across the four decades since 1960; works by MIT composers are included. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-263-music-since-1960-spring-2006/

Narration Across Media

All artistic and popular media offer their own particular techniques of storytelling. This course explores how narrative structures and models operate differently between film, television, and digital media such as videogames. Drawing heavily on various theories of narratology developed to understand the structures, techniques, and impacts of narration for literature and film, we will consider how different media offer possibilities to creators and viewers to tap into the central human practice of storytelling. We will focus on works that challenge convention in a variety of ways, centered on contemporary media and trends in narrative technique.

Jason Mittell, Middlebury College.

. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://blogs.middlebury.edu/narration08/syllabus/

Networked Social Movements: Media & Mobilization

Course Description

This seminar is a space for collaborative inquiry into the relationships between social movements and the media. We'll review these relationships through the lens of social movement theory, and function as a workshop to develop student projects. Seminar participants will work together to explore frameworks, methods, and tools for understanding networked social movements in the digital media ecology. We will engage with social movement studies as a body of theoretical and empirical work, and learn about key concepts including: resource mobilization; political process; framing; New Social Movements; collective identity; tactical media; protest cycles; movement structure; and more. We'll explore methods of social movement investigation, examine new data sources and tools for movement analysis, and grapple with recent innovations in social movement theory and research. Assignments include short blog posts, a book review, co-facilitation of a seminar discussion, and a final research project focused on social movement media practices in comparative perspective. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-361-networked-social-movements-media-mobilization-spring-2014/

Networks, Complexity and Its Applications

Course Description

Networks are a ubiquitous way to represent complex systems, including those in the social and economic sciences. The goal of the course is to equip students with conceptual tools that can help them understand complex systems that emerge in both nature and social systems. This is a course intended for a general audience and will discuss applications of networks and complexity to diverse systems, including epidemic spreading, social networks and the evolution of economic development. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-961-networks-complexity-and-its-applications-spring-2011/

New Century Cities: Real Estate, Digital Technology, and Design

Course Description

The course draws on faculty members from the Center for Real Estate, the City Design and Development Group (Department of Urban Studies and Planning), and the Media Lab to explore extraordinary projects that challenge conventional approaches to real estate development, urban design, and advanced digital technology. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/urban-studies-and-planning/11-947-new-century-cities-real-estate-digital-technology-and-design-fall-2004/

New Culture of Gender: Queer France

Course Description

This course addresses the place of contemporary queer identities in French discourse and discusses the new generation of queer authors and their principal concerns. Class discussions and readings will introduce students to the main classical references of queer subcultures, from Proust and Vivien to Hocquenghem and Wittig. Throughout the course, students will examines current debates on post-colonial and globalized queer identities through essays, songs, movies, and novels. Authors covered include Didier Eribon, Anne Garréta, Abdellah Taïa, Anne Scott, and Nina Bouraoui. This class is taught in French. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-325j-new-culture-of-gender-queer-france-fall-2011/

New Media Literacies

Course Description

This course serves as an in-depth look at literacy theory in media contexts, from its origins in ancient Greece to its functions and changes in the current age of digital media, participatory cultures, and technologized learning environments. Students will move quickly through traditional historical accounts of print literacies; the majority of the semester will focus on treating literacy as more than a functional skill (i.e., one's ability to read and write) and instead as a sophisticated set of meaning-making activities situated in specific social spaces. These new media literacies include the practices and concepts of: fan fiction writing, online social networking, videogaming, appropriation and remixing, transmedia navigation, multitasking, performance, distributed cognition, and collective intelligence. Assignments include weekly reading and writing assignments and an original research project. Readings will include Plato, Goody and Watt, Scribner and Cole, Graff, Brandt, Heath, Lemke, Gee, Alvermann, Jenkins, Hobbs, Pratt, Leander, Dyson, Levy, Kress, and Lankshear and Knobel. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-998-new-media-literacies-spring-2007/

NextLab I: Designing Mobile Technologies for the Next Billion Users

Course Description

Can you make a cellphone change the world? NextLab is a hands-on year-long design course in which students research, develop and deploy mobile technologies for the next billion mobile users in developing countries. Guided by real-world needs as observed by local partners, students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects, closely collaborating with NGOs and communities at the local level, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Students are expected to leverage technical ingenuity in both mobile and internet technologies together with social insight in order to address social challenges in areas such as health, microfinance, entrepreneurship, education, and civic activism. Students with technically and socially viable prototypes may obtain funding for travel to their target communities, in order to obtain the first-hand feedback necessary to prepare their technologies for full fledged deployment into the real world (subject to guidelines and limitations). (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-965-nextlab-i-designing-mobile-technologies-for-the-next-billion-users-fall-2008/

No Joke: Comedy as Commentary

Course by Julia Dault at the New School.. (last updated: 27 Sep 2018) http://dvdprk.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/syllabus-no-joke-comedy-as-commentary.pdf

Philosophy in Film and Other Media

(last updated: 20 Jan 2015) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-209-philosophy-in-film-and-other-media-spring-2004

Photography and Related Media

Course Description

Subject combines practical instruction, readings, lectures, field trips, visiting artists, group discussions, and individual reviews. Fosters a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Student-initiated term project at the core of exploration. Special consideration given to the relationship of space and the photographic image. Practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation, lighting, film exposure, development, and printing. Open to beginning and advanced students. Lab fee. Enrollment limited with preference given to current Master of Architecture students. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-343-photography-and-related-media-fall-2002/

Political Communication

Allan Louden, Wake Forest University. (last updated: 27 Sep 2018) http://users.wfu.edu/louden/DigitalPolitics/digitalsyl.html

Pop Culture and American Politics

Will Jennings, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (last updated: 23 Oct 2018) https://polisci.utk.edu/faculty/syllabi/Jennings-312-Syllabus.pdf

Popular Culture and Narrative: Serial Storytelling

Course Description

Serial Storytelling examines the ways the passing and unfolding of time structures narratives in a range of media. From Rembrandt's lifetime of self-portraits to The Wire, Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers to contemporary journalism and reportage, we will focus on the relationships between popular culture and art, the problems of evaluation and audience, and the ways these works function within their social context. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-430-popular-culture-and-narrative-serial-storytelling-spring-2013/

Popular Narrative: Masterminds

Course Description

Our purpose is to consider some of the most elaborate and thoughtful efforts to define and delineate "all-mastering," and to consider some of the delineations of "all-mastering the intellect" in various guises - from magicians to master spies to detectives to scientists (mad and otherwise). The major written work of the term will be an ongoing reading journal, which you will circulate to your classmates using an e-mail mailing list. The use of that list is fundamental - it is my intention to generate a sort of ongoing cyberconversation. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-430-popular-narrative-masterminds-fall-2004/

Principles and Practice of Science Communication

Course Description

This course helps in developing skills as science communicators through projects and analysis of theoretical principles. Case studies explore the emergence of popular science communication over the past two centuries and consider the relationships among authors, audiences and media. Project topics are identified early in the term and students work with MIT Museum staff. Projects may include physical exhibits, practical demonstrations, or scripts for public programs. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/science-technology-and-society/sts-014-principles-and-practice-of-science-communication-spring-2006/

Radio and Television Station Administration

Ramkhamhaeng University (Thailand). (last updated: 18 Sep 2016) http://www.iis.ru.ac.th/iis/English_Program/BA_Mass_Communication/ba_mct_tv_descriptions.htm

Radio/TV/New Media

(last updated: 27 Sep 2018) http://mariasuzanneboyd.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/radio-tv-new-media-esyllabus.doc

REALITY TV RITUALS

Arizona State University, Professor Brad Gyori. (last updated: 27 Sep 2018) http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms394/Blackboard/Spring%20Syllabi/Gyori%20FMS494%20TV.doc

Relational Machines

Course Description

This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building relational machines through a combination of studio-style design and critique along with lecture, lively discussion of course readings, and assignments. Insights from social psychology, human-computer interaction, and design will be examined, as well as how these ideas are manifest in a broad range of applications for software agents and robots. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-965-relational-machines-spring-2005/

Research Topics in Architecture: Citizen-Centered Design of Open Governance Systems

Course Description

In this seminar, students will design and perfect a digital environment to house the activities of large-scale organizations of people making bottom-up decisions, such as with citizen-government affairs, voting corporate shareholders or voting members of global non-profits and labor unions. A working Open Source prototype created last semester will be used as the starting point, featuring collaborative filtering and electronic agent technology pioneered at the Media Lab. This course focuses on development of online spaces as part of an interdependent human environment, including physical architectures, mapped work processes and social/political dimensions. A cross-disciplinary approach will be taken; students with background in architecture, urban planning, law, cognition, business, digital media and computer science are encouraged to participate. No prior technical knowledge is necessary, though a rudimentary understanding of web page creation is helpful. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-285-research-topics-in-architecture-citizen-centered-design-of-open-governance-systems-fall-2002/

Rhetoric of Mass Media

John Sloop, Vanderbilt University. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Comm/Courses/sloop.htm

Science Writing and New Media

Course Description

This course introduces writing, graphics, meetings, oral presentation, collaboration, and design as tools for product development. The communication instruction is embedded in design projects that require students to work in teams to conceive, design, prototype and evaluate energy related products. The communication instruction focuses on the communication tasks that are integral to this design process, ranging, across design notebooks, email communications, informal oral presentations, meeting etiquette, literature searches, white papers reports, and formal presentations. In addition to the assignments specific to product development, a few assignments, especially reading and reflection, will address the cultural situation of engineers and engineering in the world at large. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-732-science-writing-and-new-media-fall-2010/

Seminar on Deep Engagement

Course Description

Innovation in expression, as realized in media, tangible objects, performance and more, generates new questions and new potentials for human engagement. When and how does expression engage us deeply? Many personal stories confirm the hypothesis that once we experience deep engagement, it is a state we long for, remember, and want to repeat. This class will explore what underlying principles and innovative methods can ensure the development of higher-quality "deep engagement" products (artifacts, experiences, environments, performances, etc.) that appeal to a broad audience and that have lasting value over the long term. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-961-seminar-on-deep-engagement-fall-2004/

Shakespeare, Film and Media

(last updated: 20 Jan 2015) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-435-shakespeare-film-and-media-fall-2002

Signals, Systems and Information for Media Technology

Course Description

This class teaches the fundamentals of signals and information theory with emphasis on modeling audio/visual messages and physiologically derived signals, and the human source or recipient. Topics include linear systems, difference equations, Z-transforms, sampling and sampling rate conversion, convolution, filtering, modulation, Fourier analysis, entropy, noise, and Shannon's fundamental theorems. Additional topics may include data compression, filter design, and feature detection. The undergraduate subject MAS.160 meets with the two half-semester graduate subjects MAS.510 and MAS.511, but assignments differ. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-160-signals-systems-and-information-for-media-technology-fall-2007/

Small Wonders: Media, Modernity and the Moment: Experiments in Time

(last updated: 20 Jan 2015) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-325-small-wonders-media-modernity-and-the-moment-experiments-in-time-fall-2010

Small Wonders: Media, Modernity, and the Moment: Experiments in Time

Course Description

The "small wonders" to which our course will attend are moments of present time, depicted in the verbal and visual media of the modern age: newspapers, novels and stories, poems, photographs, films, etc. We will move between visual and verbal media across a considerable span of time, from eighteenth-century poetry and prose fiction to twenty-first century social networking and microblogging sites, and from sculpture to photography, film, and digital visual media. With help from philosophers, contemporary cultural historians, and others, we will begin to think about a media practice largely taken for granted in our own moment. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-325-small-wonders-media-modernity-and-the-moment-experiments-in-time-fall-2010/

Small Wonders: Staying Alive

Course Description

This course closely examines a coherent set of short texts and/or visual works. The selections may be the shorter works of one or more authors (poems, short stories or novellas), or short films and other visual media. Additionally, we will focus on formal issues and thematic meditations around the title of the course "Staying Alive." Content varies from semester to semester. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-325-small-wonders-staying-alive-spring-2007/

Social Visualization

Course Description

Millions of people are on-line today and the number is rapidly growing - yet this virtual crowd is often invisible. In this course we will examine ways of visualizing people, their activities and their interactions. Students will study the cognitive and cultural basis for social visualization through readings drawn from sociology, psychology and interface design and they will explore new ways of depicting virtual crowds and mapping electronic spaces through a series of design exercises. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-965-social-visualization-fall-2004/

Special Problems in Architectural Design

Course Description

This class focuses on representation tools used by architects during the design process and attempts to discuss the relationship they develop with the object of design. Representation plays a key role in architectural design, not only as a medium of conveying and narrating a determined meaning or a preconceived idea, but also as a code of creating new meaning, while the medium seeks to establish a relationship with itself. In this sense, mediums of representation, as external parameters to the design process, are not neutral tools of translating an idea into its concrete form. They are neither authentic means of creativity, nor vapid carriers of an idea. Therefore, an important aspect in issues of meaning is how the architect manipulates the play of translating a concept to its concrete version, through the use of a medium of representation. The course is a continuation of the equivalent course taught in the fall semester and specifically focuses on digital media. The course is intended to establish a reciprocal relationship with the design studio, feeding from and contributing to its content. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-195-special-problems-in-architectural-design-spring-2005/

Special Problems in Architecture Studies

Course Description

The course investigates e-Learning systems from a business, policy, technical and legal perspective. The issues presented will be tackled by discussion of the design and structure of the various example systems. The connection between information architectures and the physical workplace of the users will also be examined. The course will be comprised of readings, discussions, guest speakers and group design sessions. Laboratory sessions will be focused on implementation tools and opportunities to create one's own working prototypes. Students will learn to describe information architectures using the Unified Modeling Language (used to specify, design and structure web applications) and XML (to designate meaningful content). (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-297-special-problems-in-architecture-studies-fall-2000/

Special Topics in Cinematic Storytelling

Course Description

This seminar explores approaches to representation for distributed cinematic storytelling. The relationship between story creation and story appreciation is analyzed. Readings are drawn from literary and cinematic criticism, as well as from descriptions of interactive, distributed works. Students analyze a range of storytelling techniques; they develop a proposal using visualization techniques; and they prototype a working story experience, culminating in a final project displayed at the end of the semester. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-845-special-topics-in-cinematic-storytelling-spring-2004/

Special Topics in Media Technology: Computational Semantics

Course Description

How do words get their meanings? How can word meanings be represented and used by machines? We will explore three families of approaches to these questions from a computational perspective. Relational / structural methods such as semantic networks represent the meaning of words in terms of their relations to other words. Knowledge of the world through perception and action leads to the notion of external grounding, a process by which word meanings are 'attached' to the world. How an agent theorizes about, and conceptualizes its world provides yet another foundation for word meanings. We will examine each of these perspectives, and consider ways to integrate them. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-962-special-topics-in-media-technology-computational-semantics-fall-2002/

Special Topics in Media Technology: Cooperative Machines

Course Description

This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building machines that cooperate with humans and with other machines. Philosophical, scientific, and theoretical insights into this subject will be covered, as well as how these ideas are manifest in both natural and artificial systems (e.g. software agents and robots). (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-965-special-topics-in-media-technology-cooperative-machines-fall-2003/

Special Topics in Multimedia Production: Experiences in Interactive Art

Course Description

This class deals with interactive art. Visiting artists will discuss their work from a theoretical and practical perspective. Discussions of the history of interactive digital art and contemporary issues in the field will take place. Students will develop an interactive art project for a final exhibition or submit a short paper. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-878-special-topics-in-multimedia-production-experiences-in-interactive-art-fall-2003/

Special Topics: Designing Sociable Media

Course Description

This project-based course explores new design strategies for social interaction in the computer mediated world. Through weekly readings and design assignments we will examine topics such as:

Data-based portraiture
Depicting growth, change and the passage of time
Visualizing conversations, crowds, and networks
Interfaces for the connected city
Mobile social technologies

The course emphasizes developing visual and interactive literacy. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-961-special-topics-designing-sociable-media-spring-2008/

Special Topics: New Textiles

Course Description

This project-based course will explore the future of textiles, focusing particularly on blending rich crafting traditions with new technologies. Topics will include textile-based electronics, textile fabrication, algorithmic pattern design, and composites. We will experiment with a wide range of fibers, yarns, and fabrics including traditional materials like wool and cotton as well as metal fibers and yarns, fusible plastics, papers, and resins. We will also explore techniques like felting, laser cutting, CNC knitting, digital printing, and CNC embroidery. Students will complete weekly hands-on assignments and a final project. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-962-special-topics-new-textiles-spring-2010/

Storytelling in Film & Media (Fall 2012)

Explores how narrative structures and models operate differently between film, television, and digital media such as videogames. Jason Mittell, Middlebury College.. "All artistic and popular media offer their own particular techniques of storytelling. This course explores how narrative structures and models operate differently between film, television, and digital media such as videogames. Drawing heavily on various theories of narratology developed to understand the structures, techniques, and impacts of narrative for literature and film, we will consider how different media offer possibilities to creators and viewers to tap into the central human practice of storytelling. We will focus on works that challenge convention in a variety of ways, centered on contemporary media and trends in narrative technique." (last updated: 14 Jan 2019) http://courses.middlebury.edu/hub/MCUG/2012-2013/fall/FMMC/0357A/syllabus

Studies in Film

Course Description

This course investigates relationships between two media, film and literature, studying works linked across the two media by genre, topic, and style. It aims to sharpen appreciation of major works of cinema and of literary narrative. The course explores how artworks challenge and cross cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries. It includes some attention to theory of narrative. Films to be studied include works by Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Francis Ford Coppolla, Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Federico Fellini, among others. Literary works include texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Honoré de Balzac, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-706-studies-in-film-fall-2005/

Studies in Literary History: Modernism: From Nietzsche to Fellini

Course Description

How do literature, philosophy, film and other arts respond to the profound changes in world view and lifestyle that mark the twentieth century? This course considers a broad range of works from different countries, different media, and different genres, in exploring the transition to a decentered "Einsteinian" universe. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-709-studies-in-literary-history-modernism-from-nietzsche-to-fellini-fall-2010/

Techno-identity: Who we are and how we perceive ourselves and others

Course Description

The nature of human identity - how we think of ourselves, how we perceive others - is a mutable concept, changing with the rise and fall of religious beliefs, social mores, philosophical theories. Today, we live in a world in which science and technology are among the most powerful forces reshaping our culture - and thus our definitions and perceptions of identity. In this seminar, we will examine the impact of science and technology on identity. The instructor's course page may be viewed athttp://smg.media.mit.edu/classes/IdentitySeminar/ (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/media-arts-and-sciences/mas-963-techno-identity-who-we-are-and-how-we-perceive-ourselves-and-others-spring-2002/

Technologies of Humanism

Course Description

This course explores the properties of non-sequential, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and of storyline is complemented by theoretical texts about authorship/readership, plot/story, properties of digital media and hypertext. Questions that will be addressed in this course include: How can we define ‘non-sequentiality/multi-linearity’, ‘interactivity’, ‘narrative’. To what extend are these aspects determined by the text, the reader, the digital format? What are the roles of the reader and the author? What kinds of narratives are especially suited for a non-linear/interactive format? Are there stories that can only be told in a digital format? What can we learn from early non-digital examples of non-linear and interactive story telling? (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-708-technologies-of-humanism-spring-2003/

Technopanics: Moral Panics about Technology

Course Description

Hacking and trolling; mass murders and bullying. What do these have in common? One theory holds that these are all "deviant" social behaviors, occurring both online and off, which have purportedly been brought about or exacerbated by our new media environment. Such aberrant behaviors seemingly give us ample reason to fear digital and social media. But is technology to blame? We will grapple with this question as we investigate how our understanding of new technologies and media is socially shaped and, in turn, how new media might influence our social behavior. We will begin by studying how similar panics about "old" media (books, film, television and even the written word itself) set historical precedents for these current fears. Along the way we will establish and explore issues embedded in debates about new media, including questions of class, gender, youth, sex, and violence. Such topics will be placed in cross-cultural perspective, allowing us to compare the nature of panics over contemporary events and issues—e.g. the Columbine school shootings, cyber-bullying, Japanese otaku, and the Chinese "Human Flesh Search Engine"—occurring within both the United States and East Asia. Students will read essays, keep media journals and watch films pertaining to weekly topics. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-s60-technopanics-moral-panics-about-technology-spring-2013/

Television and American Culture

Professor T.S. Frank, Washington & Jefferson College. (last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://wiki.washjeff.edu/download/attachments/8978571/Com340Syll07.doc?version=1

The Anthropology of Cybercultures

Course Description

This course explores a range of contemporary scholarship oriented to the study of 'cybercultures,' with a focus on research inspired by ethnographic and more broadly anthropological perspectives. Taking anthropology as a resource for cultural critique, the course will be organized through a set of readings chosen to illustrate central topics concerning the cultural and material practices that comprise digital technologies. We'll examine social histories of automata and automation; the trope of the 'cyber' and its origins in the emergence of cybernetics during the last century; cybergeographies and politics; robots, agents and humanlike machines; bioinformatics and artificial life; online sociality and the cyborg imaginary; ubiquitous and mobile computing; ethnographies of research and development; and geeks, gamers and hacktivists. We'll close by considering the implications for all of these topics of emerging reconceptualizations of sociomaterial relations, informed by feminist science and technology studies. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/anthropology/21a-850j-the-anthropology-of-cybercultures-spring-2009/

The Anthropology of Sound

Course Description

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples — sound art, environmental recordings, music — will be provided and invited throughout the term. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/anthropology/21a-360j-the-anthropology-of-sound-spring-2008/

The Creative Spark

Course Description

"Creative activity (isn't) the icing on the cake. Human creativity is the cake." (Jerry Hirschberg) Creativity - "the mastery of information and skills in the service of dreams" (Hirschberg) - is much prized in the arts, science, business and the classroom. What does the creative process look like? Under what conditions does it flourish - what ignites the creative spark? Attempting to answer these questions, this class explores ways creativity has been understood in Western culture: what we prize and fear about creativity and its wellsprings; how writers, artists, scientists and inventors have described their own creative processes; how psychologists and philosophers have theorized it; ways in which creativity has been represented in Western culture, particularly in 20th century films; and creativity in everyday life, including our own lives. Readings include portions of psychologist Rollo May's The Courage To Create, and essays by Joan Didion, John Updike, Alice Walker, Oliver Sacks, and others. In addition, we'll watch video profiles of choreographer Paul Taylor, architect Maya Lin, and jazz musician Dave Brubeck. We'll keep journals in which we note our own observations and reflections on creative process. We will also watch a film together as a class one evening early in the term. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-730-2-the-creative-spark-fall-2004/

The Making of a Roman Emperor

Course Highlights

This course features descriptions of course writing assignments. This course also featuresarchived syllabi from various semesters.

Course Description

Focusing on the emperors Augustus and Nero, this course investigates the ways in which Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage and other media to create and project an image of themselves, the ways in which the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and the ways in which both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. Material studied will include the art, architecture, and coinage of Augustan and Neronian Rome, the works of Suetonius and Tacitus, and modern representations of the emperors such as those found in I, Claudius andQuo Vadis. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-402-the-making-of-a-roman-emperor-fall-2005/

Theory and Practice of Non-linear and Interactive Narrative

Course Description

This class covers a range of topics including hypertext, interactive cinema, games, installation art, and soundscapes. It examines the potential for dynamic narrative in traditional media like novels and films and as well as in computer-based stories and games. The course focuses on the creation of electronic stories and games using simple authoring systems and multimedia software tools. Students present and constructively critique one another's work in progress in a workshop setting aimed at expanding the representational powers of a new creative medium. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-765j-theory-and-practice-of-non-linear-and-interactive-narrative-spring-2003/

Topics in Culture and Globalization

Course Description

The concept of globalization fosters the understanding of the interconnectedness of cultures and societies geographically wide apart; America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Subject scans existing debates over globalization around the world. This course explores how globalization impacts everyday life in the First and Third World; how globalization leads to a common cosmopolitan culture; the emergence of a global youth culture; and religious, social, and political movements that challenge globalization. Materials examined include pop music, advertisements, film posters, and political cartoons. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-035-topics-in-culture-and-globalization-fall-2003/

Topics in Culture and Globalization: Reggae as Transnational Culture

Course Description

This course considers reggae, or Jamaican popular music more generally—in its various forms (ska, rocksteady, roots, dancehall)—as constituted by international movements and exchanges and as a product that circulates globally in complex ways. By reading across the reggae literature, as well as considering reggae texts themselves (songs, films, videos, and images), students will scrutinize the different interpretations of reggae's significance and the implications of different interpretations of the story of Jamaica and its music. Beginning with a consideration of how Jamaica's popular music industry emerged out of transnational exchanges, the course will proceed to focus on reggae's circulation outside of Jamaica via diasporic networks and commercial mediascapes. Among other sites, we will consider reggae's resonance and impact elsewhere in the Anglo Caribbean (e.g., Trinidad, Barbados), the United Kingdom (including British reggae styles but also such progeny as jungle, grime, and dubstep), the United States (both as reggae per se and in hip-hop), Panama and Puerto Rico and other Latin American locales (e.g., Brazil), Japan and Australia, as well as West, South, and East Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Uganda). (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-035-topics-in-culture-and-globalization-reggae-as-transnational-culture-fall-2010/

Topics in Indian Popular Culture

(last updated: 18 Sep 2016) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-011-topics-in-indian-popular-culture-spectacle-masala-and-genre-fall-2006/

Topics in Indian Popular Culture: Spectacle, Masala, and Genre

Course Description

This course aims to provide an overview of Indian popular culture over the last two decades, through a variety of material such as popular fiction, music, television and Bombay cinema. The class will explore major themes and their representations in relation to current social and political issues. In particular, students will examine the elements of the formulaic "masala movie", music and melodrama, the ideas of nostalgia and incumbent change in youth culture, as well as shifting questions of gender and sexuality in popular fiction. During the course, students will look at some journalistic writing, advertising clips and political cartoons to understand the relation between the popular culture and the social imagery of a nation. This course is taught in English. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-011-topics-in-indian-popular-culture-spectacle-masala-and-genre-fall-2006/

Topics in South Asian Literature and Culture

Course Description

This subject aims to provide an overview of contemporary texts in regional languages in South Asian Literature and Cinema. We will cover major authors and film makers, writing from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Within India, we will look at authors and directors working in different regional languages and as we examine their different socio-cultural, political and historical contexts we will attempt to understand what it means to study them under the all-unifying category of "South Asian Literature and Culture". Some of the major issues we shall explore include caste, gender, globalization and social change. We will end with exploring some of the newer, younger writers and directors and try to analyze some of the thematic and formal shifts in their work. Authors include Ashapurna Devi, Manto, Vijayan, Premchand, Mohanty, and Nasreen and film makers will include Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Aparna Sen and Rituporno Ghosh. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/21g-041-topics-in-south-asian-literature-and-culture-fall-2004/

Transmedia Storytelling: Modern Science Fiction

(last updated: 20 Jan 2015) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-763j-transmedia-storytelling-modern-science-fiction-spring-2014

Transmedia Storytelling: Modern Science Fiction

Course Description

Transmedia narratives exist across multiple storytelling platforms, using the advantages of each to enhance the experience of the audience. No matter which medium nor how many, the heart of any successful transmedia project is a good story. In this class we will spend time on the basics of solid storytelling in speculative fiction before we move on to how to translate those elements into various media. We will then explore how different presentations in different media can complement and enhance our storytelling. While we will read scholarly articles and discuss ideas about transmedia, this is primarily a class in making speculative fiction transmedia projects. We will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various mediums and consider how they complement each other, and how by using several different media we can give the audience a more complete, rewarding, and immersive experience. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-763j-transmedia-storytelling-modern-science-fiction-spring-2014/

Unmanageability: Pathless Realities and Approaches

Course Description

Over the last 40 years, new managerial technologies in Western democratic societies have emerged to dominate our perceived and lived reality. Demands for autonomy and a creative life, which have been the touchstones for artistic endeavors, have been readily absorbed into management philosophies, becoming normative values for self-management and entrepreneurial innovation. Is this art's triumph or demise? Can we imagine other worlds beyond our managed reality and propose forms of living not yet captured by the rationality of network capitalism? We will explore the "creative" figure and how it can shape renewed critical expressions in fields such as technology, design, science, philosophy, etc. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-s33-unmanageability-pathless-realities-and-approaches-spring-2015/

US History in Film

(last updated: 12 Apr 2011) http://ushistoryfilm.umwblogs.org/syllabus/

Videogame Theory and Analysis

Course Description

This course will serve as an introduction to the interdisciplinary academic study of videogames, examining their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. By playing, analyzing, and reading and writing about videogames, we will examine debates surrounding how they function within socially situated contexts in order to better understand games' influence on and reflections of society. Readings will include contemporary videogame theory and the completion of a contemporary commercial videogame chosen in consultation with the instructor. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-600-videogame-theory-and-analysis-fall-2007/

Videogame Theory and Analysis

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of commercial videogames as texts, examining their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. Students play and analyze videogames while examining debates surrounding how games function within socially situated contexts. Readings include contemporary game theory (Gee, Squire, Steinkuehler, Jenkins, Klopfer, Zimmerman and Salen, Juul, Bartle, Taylor, Aarseth) and the completion of a contemporary commercial videogame chosen in consultation with the instructor. (last updated: 9 Oct 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-998-videogame-theory-and-analysis-fall-2006/

Workshop I

Course Description

This course fulfills the first half of the Comparative Media Studies workshop sequence requirement for entering graduate students. The workshop sequence provides an opportunity for a creative, hands-on project development experience and emphasizes intellectual growth as well as the acquisition of technical skills. The course is designed to provide practical, hands-on experience to complement students' theoretical studies. (last updated: 30 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-950-workshop-i-fall-2005/

Writing About Race: Narratives of Multiraciality

Course Description

In this course we will read essays, novels, memoirs, and graphic texts, and view documentary and experimental films and videos which explore race from the standpoint of the multiracial. Examining the varied work of multiracial authors and filmmakers such as Danzy Senna, Ruth Ozeki, Kip Fulbeck, James McBride and others, we will focus not on how multiracial people are seen or imagined by the dominant culture, but instead on how they represent themselves. How do these authors approach issues of family, community, nation, language and history? What can their work tell us about the complex interconnections between race, gender, class, sexuality, and citizenship? Is there a relationship between their experiences of multiraciality and a willingness to experiment with form and genre? In addressing these and other questions, we will endeavor to think and write more critically and creatively about race as a social category and a lived experience. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-742j-writing-about-race-narratives-of-multiraciality-fall-2008/

Writing and Experience: MIT: Inside, Live

Course Description

During this seminar, students will chronicle their MIT experiences and investigate MIT history and culture. Visits to the MIT archives and museum, along with relevant readings, will supplement students’ experiences as source material for discussion and writing. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-021-writing-and-experience-mit-inside-live-fall-2013/

Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing Autobiography

Course Description

The reading and writing in this course will focus on the art of self-narrative or autobiographical writing. Such writing can be crafted in the form of a longer autobiography or of separate, shorter autobiographically-inspired essays. The various forms of autobiographical narrative can both reflect on personal experience and comment on larger issues in society. This course explores, through reading and writing, what it means to construct a sense of self-and a life narrative-in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. What does it mean to see ourselves as embodying particular ethical values or belonging to a certain ethnic, racial, national or religious group(s)? How do we imagine ourselves within larger "family narrative(s)" and friendship groups? In what ways do we view our identities as connected to and expressed by our educational and work experiences, including experiences at MIT? How do we see ourselves as shaping and shaped by the popular media culture of our society? How do we think about our ethical and social responsibility to our friends, families and communities (large and small)? Readings will include autobiographically-inspired nonfiction and fiction. (last updated: 27 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-022-03-writing-and-experience-reading-and-writing-autobiography-spring-2014/

Writing on Contemporary Issues: Culture Shock! Writing, Editing, and Publishing in Cyberspace

Course Description

This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience—specifically, prose that is both critical and personal, that features your ideas, your perspective, and your voice to engage readers. The focus of our reading and your writing will be American popular culture, broadly defined. That is, you will write essays that critically engage elements and aspects of contemporary American popular culture and that do so via a vivid personal voice and presence. In the coming weeks we will read a number of pieces that address current issues in popular culture. These readings will address a great many subjects from the contemporary world to launch and elaborate an argument or position or refined observation. And you yourselves will write a great deal, attending always to the ways your purpose in writing and your intended audience shape what and how you write. The end result of our collaborative work will be a new edition, the seventh, of Culture Shock!, an online magazine of writings on American popular culture, which we will post on the Web for the worldwide reading public to enjoy. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-730-5-writing-on-contemporary-issues-culture-shock-writing-editing-and-publishing-in-cyberspace-fall-2008/

Writing on Contemporary Issues: Imagining the Future

Course Description

Turn-of-the-century eras have historically been times when people are more than usually inclined to scrutinize the present and speculate about the future. Now, the turn not just of a century but of a millennium having recently passed, such scrutiny and speculations inevitably intensify. What will the future that awaits us in this twenty-first century and beyond be like? And how do visions of that future reflect and respond to the world we live in now? In this course we will read and write about how some writers and filmmakers have responded to the present as a way of imagining—and warning about—possible worlds to come. Guided by our reading and discussion, we will scrutinize our own present and construct our own visions of the future through close readings of the texts as well as of some aspects of contemporary culture—urban and environmental crises, economic imperialism, sexual and reproductive politics, the ethics of biotechnologies, issues of race and gender, the romance of technology, robotics and cyborg cultures, media saturation, language and representation—and the persistent questions they pose about what it means to be human at this start of a new millennium. (last updated: 28 Sep 2016) https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/21w-730-5-writing-on-contemporary-issues-imagining-the-future-fall-2007/