Undergraduate Courses (list)

This course will examine questions of cinematic authorship (in addition to other theoretical concerns) through one of the medium’s most influential figures: Alfred Hitchcock. We will trace Hitchcock’s formal and thematic development across major films from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and then place this body of work in dialogue with filmmakers such as Michael Powell, Luis Buñuel, Brian De Palma, Dario Argento, Chantal Akerman, Bette Gordon, and more. Themes relating to voyeurism, psychosis, perversion, surveillance, paranoia, gender, sexuality, and reflexivity will feature prominently. In addition to gaining insight into authorship and the workings of the cinematic apparatus more generally, students will also develop proficiency with frameworks for critical analysis, including genre, ideology, form, psychoanalysis, feminist critique, and queer theory among others.