2022-2023 Academic Catalog

Nov 27, 2024

2022-2023 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

SCRN 291 - Capstone Course - Variable topics

The Screen Studies capstone involves a seminar-style, intensive exploration of a single subject area relevant to moving-image media. Historical, theoretical, and practical approaches are all considered. Students engage in intensive weekly readings, discussions, and presentations, with the semester culminating in a well-researched and polished 25-page paper, or a carefully developed and refined video project. The goal is to produce work that could be worthy of submission to a graduate admissions committee, or to a writing contest or film festival. Students should expect this course to require considerably more weekly work than a standard 200-level Screen course and adjust their fall schedule accordingly. Topics vary.

FALL 2022 TOPIC: Comedy & Queerness

This course will be devoted to the study of gender, queerness, and comedy. We will revisit classic theories of comedy and humor but alongside contemporary queer and trans stand-up before delving into the rich archive of feminist scholarship countering centuries of popular myths of women as humorless beings. We will learn how, for comediennes, daring to be funny has long itself been a gender transgressive act, which they have in turn wielded to satirize patriarchy and articulate a range of feminist politics. And we will study the queer humor at work in the most mainstream of TV genres: the sitcom. Students will finally conduct their own original research into what comedy and humor have offered trans people, queer people, and all those who buck gender norms.

Prerequisites: SCRN 101 or MCA 101 or Permission.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every fall