CMS 397 A: Special Topics in Cinema and Media Studies

Description

“It was inspiring-slash-depressing to realize Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career), who began in the ‘70s, had so much to say about how hard it was starting out as a woman. [In interviews] she just wanted to talk about being a filmmaker, but she had to keep talking about what it was like to be a woman, you know. Then, when I talked to Josephine Decker, who started making films 15 years ago, she told me she had the same experience. And I thought, Oh no. That’s not good. They shouldn’t have the same hurdles!” Marya Gates, author of Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words, interviewed in The Chicago Tribune, 24 Mar. 2025.

"Being the first African American woman director ever nominated [for an Academy Award] in a [Best Documentary] feature category is really abhorrent. . . . The fact that we're in 2017 and that's the case reflects poorly on our industry, an industry that prides itself on forward thinking and being a leader in creativity around the world. We are not when it comes to being inclusive." Ava DuVernay, Elle, 25 Feb. 2017.

Although films by Jane Campion, Ava DuVernay, Lucrecia Martel, Gillian Armstrong, and other female directors have appeared on critics’ best-of-year lists and garnered award nominations and wins, women filmmakers represent a minority in their industry. In the United States, 11% of the 100 top-grossing films of 2024 were directed by women, and only eight percent of the 250 top-grossing films employed ten or more women in prominent positions behind the scenes. Of the 1,800 top-grossing US films released between 2007 and 2024, BIPOC women directed only 32. Such statistics confirm the inequality female filmmakers have reported. But what effects does the paucity of women behind the camera have and what might their presence bring? How does the filmmaker's identity matter?

To investigate these questions, we will examine the work of female directors from around the globe, from the work of silent-era director Alice Guy Blachè to films released at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival. A study of women directors’ work not only allows us to analyze cinematic narrative and style, but also provides a unique perspective on film history. Furthermore, course films raise questions about the relationship between an individual filmmaker’s work and concurrent cinematic movements, film scholarship, and cultural contexts.

Throughout the term, we will focus on the following questions:

• What distinguishes the work of women directors?
• How does an investigation of women directors change our conception of film history, genre, national cinemas or film movements?
• How does feminist film criticism help us to interpret films made by women? What challenge do particular directors pose to critics?
• How do historical, cultural, and industrial factors shape the work of women directors?
• How do films made by women engage local ideologies of gender, race, class, and sexuality?

Course films highlight how female directors work within and against genre conventions; examine cinematic gaze and the female body; explore intersectional identities; and critically interrogate motherhood, marriage, and romance. Please note that selected course films depict painful subjects, including rape, sexual coercion, domestic violence, racism, homophobia, and death.

Cinema and Media Studies 397/English 345 fulfills the University’s VLPA requirement and counts toward English and Cinema Studies major requirements. Although our course meets primarily in person, we will shift to hybrid instruction during weeks eight and nine to accommodate film festival attendance.

Course Goals and Methodology

Students in the course work toward several goals: learning how to read film formally, contextually and theoretically and developing as critical thinkers and writers. By the end of the course, students should be able to:

1. Identify films’ narrative, visual, and sound techniques, using vocabulary specific to cinema studies.
2. Analyze how women filmmakers use artistic strategies to achieve a range of effects.
3. Evaluate how films made by women respond to and shape existing cultural contexts and cinematic conventions.
4. Develop complex arguments and support those arguments with sufficient and appropriate evidence.
5. Engage the work of film scholars, critically responding to their ideas in discussion and writing.

Course activities promote active learning. Expect a blend of short lectures, discussion, polls, and individual writing. My role is to provide the tools and resources; you will need to advance your own thinking and writing.  I will pose questions, design activities to help you think through these questions, and respond to your ideas.  Your role is to do the hard work—the critical reading, discussion, and writing.  You will analyze films, generate ideas with peers, verbally analyze film clips, and construct written arguments.

Requirements

Class Participation

Class discussion constitutes one key method of developing your analytical skills. Thus, I expect regular, active participation in discussions of films and readings. You should prepare for each discussion—whether live or asynchronous—by annotating assigned readings and taking notes during screenings. You should also plan to ask questions, engage peers’ comments, respond to polls, summarize readings, analyze clips, paraphrase your film responses/SIFF blogs, or contribute to small-group exchanges. Like all skills, participating in class becomes easier with practice. I do not expect fully polished analyses; rather, your contributions spark further discussion and may become the basis for other assignments.

There are several ways you can participate in the course:

• Speaking to the whole class or small groups of peers during live class sessions.
• Asking questions of peers and the instructor, commenting, and taking notes via shared Google Docs during live class sessions.
• Responding to polls during live class sessions.
• Completing required replies to peers’ SIFF blogs on Canvas.
• Posing or answering questions on the Community Forum.
• Giving feedback on peers’ project ideas-in-progress.
• Discussing films, ideas-in-progress, or questions with Kimberlee during drop-in hours.

Students should also expect me to call on them, as I want everyone to earn full credit for class participation. Because students will have multiple, sometimes conflicting, interpretations of course films, we will establish norms for maintaining a respectful learning climate early in the quarter.  We’ll also work to develop rapport with icebreaker activities early in the quarter.

If you must miss class due to illness, I will provide alternative ways for you to contribute. I may ask you to keep a reading journal, comment on peers’ short assignments, engage in online discussion with others who are ill, or share textual annotations with peers. If I must miss class due to illness or if the university cancels in-person classes, I will email students with instructions.

I assess participation weekly on a credit/partial credit/no credit basis, with students who contribute as described above with good-faith effort receiving full credit. Lack of engagement in class activities, inadequate preparation, and failure to adhere to classroom rules will substantially lower your participation grade for the course.

Electronic Responses and SIFF Blog

Students will use the class discussion board to share responses to films and readings. I will pose questions on course texts. In a 250- to 300-word response, you may address one of my questions or introduce another point. You may also engage your classmates’ ideas as you write. During our weeks at the Seattle International Film Festival, you will author 250- to 300-word blog entries on the SIFF films you attend. The online film responses and SIFF blog postings allow us to raise issues for further discussion, expand on previous conversations, and develop ideas for the clip annotation and projects.

Your postings and blog entries receive points on a credit/partial credit/no credit basis, with full credit granted to on-time postings that meet the length requirement and demonstrate serious engagement with the questions provided or film discussed.

Clip Annotation

Early in the quarter, you will create an online analysis of how elements of narrative form, cinematography, or mise-en-scene function in a clip from The Blot, Christopher Strong, Daughters of the Dust, or The Piano.

Connect Four Group Wiki Project

Students will collaborate in groups of four to create a course wiki page that introduces four woman-directed films not screened for class and connects them to assigned course films, topics, and readings. Groups will do a brief show-and-tell talk to present their wiki to peers. In addition to requiring students to comparatively analyze films, the wiki project also provides resources for the film festival program project

Film Festival Program Project

Students will complete a final project: selecting films and creating a program for a one-day Women Filmmakers Festival and composing an author’s memo that explains programming choices and connects the project to class films, readings, and discussions. The project requires multiple short assignments and a draft that receive peer feedback. In addition, I will be available to discuss ideas-in-progress and drafts. You can also seek feedback from consultants at the Odegaard Writing and Research Center or the CLUE Writing Center.

Connecting with Others

In addition to interacting with others in class and online, you have other opportunities to connect with peers and the instructor:

Community Forum

The Community Forum is an asynchronous space where you can ask general questions about the course, readings, or assignment prompts. Posting questions in the Community Forum helps others with the same question. It also allows students to share answers the instructor might not have.

Drop-in Hours

You need not have a specific question about the class, course texts, an assignment, or work-in-progress to attend my drop-in hours. I’m available every Monday from 9:30-10:30 in Padelford A-305 and via Zoom (https://washington.zoom.us/j/91343874952) and Thursday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. via Zoom. Come visit me to discuss your interests, experiences at UW, or even the class. If you cannot make my scheduled drop-in hours, please contact me to set up an alternative time.

Policies

Lateness Policy

You may submit one film response or SIFF blog 24 hours after the due date. Otherwise, I do not accept late film responses or SIFF blog entries, nor will I allow groups to reschedule wiki presentations. Late critical annotations and projects will receive a 10-point deduction per day late, including weekends and holidays. I will make exceptions to the lateness policy only in cases of illness or family emergency. You need not document your illness or emergency, but please contact me as soon as possible if you know you cannot meet a deadline.

Technology glitches do not constitute valid excuses for lateness. To avoid computer problems, you should save frequently while working, and you should back up work saved on a hard drive to Dropbox, iCloud, UW Google Drive, or your personal file space on Canvas. When submitting files or URLs to Canvas, you are responsible for copying/pasting the correct URL or selecting the correct file. If Canvas breaks down, contact UW-IT technical support (help@uw.edu) and email your work directly to me (kgb@uw.edu). 

Academic Integrity

Cinema and Media Studies 397/English 345 adheres to the University of Washington’s Student Conduct Code, which prohibits academic misconduct like distributing instructional materials outside class without permission, cheating, and plagiarism: the unacknowledged use of others' words or ideas.

All files, films/film clips, lecture slides, assignment prompts, and other course handouts are for enrolled students only, as are materials produced by other students. When drawing upon sources in your reading responses, annotation, and projects, make clear to your audience that you are incorporating others’ work by placing quotation marks around exact words and noting the author’s name whenever you quote, summarize or paraphrase

A note on generative AI: You may use generative AI to help you develop ideas, create outlines, and provide feedback on work-in-progress. You may not use generative AI to write text for you, nor may you include materials for which you don’t have copyright in your prompts. Furthermore, you must document your use of AI tools, providing information on what tool you used and how you used it. The University of Washington offers a version of Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection, which means that information you submit in your prompt will not become part of Microsoft’s AI training dataset. While the university’s agreement with Microsoft doesn’t address the environmental impact; inaccuracies, hallucinations, and bias; labor issues; and intellectual property concerns that AI brings, it does protect your privacy in ways openly-available generative AI platforms do not. However, you must log on to Microsoft 365 with your UW credentials to use the protected version.

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Submitting work authored by another person or AI, failure to credit sources, and sharing materials outside class may result in a failing grade for the assignment, a failing grade for the course, or other disciplinary action. If I see evidence of academic misconduct, I will make a report to the Community Standards & Student Conduct office.

Technology in the Classroom

Our wired classroom allows us to access polls, film clips, and other online materials. However, since devices and wireless Internet access present the temptations of email, messaging, and the web, I ask that you follow basic ground rules:

• Switch off and stow your cell phone before class begins.
• Limit device use to taking notes, accessing materials during small-group exercises and researching questions posed in class discussion; please do not check email, electronically chat, update your social networking status or surf the web during class.

Texts

Films

All course films are available in streaming format via our course Canvas site.

• Advantageous (Jennifer Phang, USA, 2015, 90 min.)
• The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, Australia/Canada, 2014, 93 min)
• The Blot (Lois Weber, USA, 1921, 80 min.)
• Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, USA, 1933, 77 min.)
• Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, USA, 1991, 112 min.)
• First Cow (Kelley Reichardt, USA, 2019, 122 min.)
• A House Divided (Alice Guy Blachè, USA, 1913, 13 min.)
• Matrimony’s Speed Limit (Alice Guy Blachè, USA, 1913, 14 min.)
• La Niña Santa/The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Italy/Netherlands/Spain, 2004, 106 min.).
• The Piano (Jane Campion, Australia/New Zealand/France, 1993, 121 min.)
• Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, US, 77 min.)
• Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999, UK/France, 94 min.)
• Sans Toi Ni Loi/Vagabond (Agnes Varda, France/UK, 1985, 105 min.)
• The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, USA, 1996, 90 min.)
• Selected SIFF films

Textbook and Articles

• Sharman, Russell. Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema. University of Arkansas Pressbooks, 2020. Open access textbook available at https://uark.pressbooks.pub/movingpictures/.
• Online readings for Cinema and Media Studies 397/English 345. Available via course Canvas site.

Additional Expenses

• Tickets for three SIFF films (approximately $33-$38 total)

Assessment and Grading

Grades in Cinema and Media Studies 397/English 345 will be computed by points, with 300 points equaling a 3.0, 200 points a 2.0, and so on. If your total falls between grades, I will round up if you score one to five points below the higher grade and round down if you score one to four points above the lower grade. For example, 274 points equals a 2.7 and 275 points a 2.8. Students who score less than 65 points total will receive a 0 for the course, as the UW grading system does not scale grades lower than .7. I also assign a 4.0 to students who score between 385 and 400 points.

Responses and SIFF blog entries receive full credit for meeting minimum length requirements and thoughtfully engaging with prompts Students who consistently engage with course materials and peers as outlined in “Class Participation” will receive full participation points. All other assignments are evaluated based on how effectively work submitted meet stated criteria. Assessment comes in the form of grades and instructor feedback, either free-form or within a rubric. If you do not understand course readings, films, instructional materials, or assignment prompts, ask questions in class, drop-in hours, or the Community Forum. 

Total Points for the Course

Each component of the course is worth the following number of points. Please note that Canvas does not integrate well with my point schema. Canvas automatically converts points into percentages, a conversion that can make your grade seem lower than it actually is. For example, 10/20 points represents the C range under my system and the F range (50%) under a percentage system. For this reason, I include point range information on each assignment. In short, keep track of your total points and ignore Canvas's percentage conversion.