This course is a seminar on the nature of love and sex, approached as topics both in philosophy and in literature. Readings from recent philosophy as well as classic myths of love that occur in works of literature and lend themselves to philosophical analysis.

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.

This course analyzes mainstream, popular films produced in the post-World War II 20th century U.S. as cultural texts that shed light on ongoing historical struggles over gender identity and appropriate sexual behaviors. It traces the history of LGBTQ/queer film through the 20th and into the 21st century. It also examines the effect of the Hollywood Production Code and censorship of sexual themes and content, and the subsequent subversion of queer cultural production in embedded codes and metaphors. In addition, this course also considers the significance of these films as artifacts and examples of various aspects of queer theory.

This media literacy unit was designed and piloted with junior English classes at the start of the school year. Activities can easily be adapted to suit secondary students at various levels. Within the unit, students analyze corporate logos, corporate advertising, movie trailers and stereotypes found in media related to Native American culture. Within the unit, students also learn how to consider the ways in which media appeals to ethos, pathose and logos and how to identify the tone of a piece of media. 

Using Theatre to Reimagine Graduate Supervision

Short Description:
Rock the Boat is an open-access multimedia resource designed to provoke dialogue about graduate supervision relationships within universities, and their impact on student and faculty wellbeing. Drawing upon the tradition of Research-based Theatre, Rock the Boat draws attention to graduate supervision as a vital form of pedagogy, and as rife with challenges — especially relating to equity, inclusion and diversity.

Long Description:
Drawing upon the tradition of Research-based Theatre, Rock the Boat draws attention to graduate supervision as a vital form of pedagogy, and as rife with challenges — especially relating to equity, inclusion and diversity. By supporting structured and safe dialogue about some of these challenges on campus, we hope to support students, faculty and staff in developing healthy, respectful supervisory relationships, thereby enhancing the wellbeing of all.

The resource comprises four filmed scenes, each seven to 10 minutes long: Zoom Fatigue, Contentious Authorship, No Other Choice and Disclosures. Each scene dramatizes a relationship between one or more graduate students and their supervisors and provokes dialogue around specific challenges that can occur. These include supervisory communication, authorship of scientific papers, competition between students, gender and racial discrimination, balancing personal and professional priorities, mental health and privacy.

The scenes can be used in any facilitated group context. You may, for example, wish to use them for graduate student orientation, during equity, diversity and inclusion workshops, for supervisory training sessions, or during faculty or departmental retreats. The scenes are professionally acted and filmed, and this guide will help you design and facilitate a group session that generates useful dialogue, whatever your specific goals.

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Using film and related popular media as our texts, this course will examine how screen “embodiments” of the woman visualize ideologies of discipline and desire in a culture in which her body has become a representation of the ability to control appetites, size and shape while investing personal and social capital in its rehabilitation as a project of endless reconstruction, redesign and maintenance. Throughout the course we will draw from feminist film theory, clinical psychology, as well as women’s, gender, and cultural studies, to better understand how filmic representations of the woman’s body first emerge from contemporary psychosocial contexts and then in turn shape the body ideals and internalizations, as well as the behavioral practices of the film spectator.
The Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies (GCWS)
This course is part of the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies. The GCWS at MIT brings together scholars and teachers at nine degree-granting institutions in the Boston area who are devoted to graduate teaching and research in Women’s Studies and to advancing interdisciplinary Women’s Studies scholarship. Learn more about the GCWS.

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a historically violent American organization that has operated in three periods to promote white supremacy and white nationalism and resist immigration. Founded after the Civil War as a secret society by Confederate generals, the First Klan’s primary focus was subverting Republican Reconstruction policies and preventing emancipated African Americans from receiving the benefits of citizenship. Despite its success disrupting black political participation through threats and actual violence, federal government efforts to suppress the Klan in 1870-1871 forced in a major decline in its activities.

This subject is designed to give 21H majors and minors an introduction to the methods that historians use to interpret the past. We will focus on two areas: archives and interpretation. In our work on archives, we will ask what constitutes an archive. We will visit one or two local archives, speak with archivists, and assemble our own archive related to life at MIT in 2003. Once we have a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of historical archives, we will turn to the task of interpreting archival findings. We will discuss a series of readings organized around the theme of history and national identity in various parts of the world since the end of the eighteenth century.

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.

Three hundred and eighty years after his death, William Shakespeare remains the central author of the English-speaking world; he is the most quoted poet and the most regularly produced playwright — and now among the most popular screenwriters as well. Why is that, and who “is” he? Why do so many people think his writing is so great? What meanings did his plays have in his own time, and how do we read, speak, or listen to his words now? What should we watch for when viewing his plays in performance? Whose plays are we watching, anyway? We’ll consider these questions as we carefully examine a sampling of Shakespeare’s plays from a variety of critical perspectives.

A third-year intermediate course designed to improve speaking and writing, with opportunities for vocabulary acquisition, listening comprehension and reading practice as well. Uses literary and cultural readings, films, and group activities. Students give oral reports and participate in discussions and group projects.

Spanish II continues to develop students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills using the second part of the video-based program, Destinos, begun in Spanish I. Destinos is a soap opera that allows students to learn Spanish and experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of surprises and human emotions. Spanish II also includes additional materials, such as Spanish films and other media, various types of reading selections and online resources.

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.

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.

The research project of this Ph.D. in Digital Media has as objective the creation of a tool (object of learning) for pedagogical aid in teaching the production of visual effects in audiovisual productions, more specifically in the interactions between real and virtual images (match moving).

The prototype created during the research has the purpose of assisting teachers and students in the practical exercises of interaction between real and virtual images.

The tool has the ability to assist in data collection at the time of live-action filming, given the large amount and complexity of these data, and its vital need for the reproduction of real conditions in the virtual universe later.

In addition, it has the ability to generate a script (in Maxscript language) for its use in 3DS Max graphics software, automating part of the production process.

It is also part of the research, besides the conception and creation of the tool (learning object), its validation in the pedagogical and design bias (user experience and user interface).

This course considers how the visual and material world of “nature” has been reshaped by industrial practices, ideologies, and institutions, particularly in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Topics include land-use patterns; the changing shape of cities and farms; the redesign of water systems; the construction of roads, dams, bridges, irrigation systems; the creation of national parks; ideas about wilderness; and the role of nature in an industrial world. From small farms to suburbia, Walden Pond to Yosemite, we will ask how technological and natural forces have interacted, and whether there is a place for nature in a technological world.
Acknowledgement
This class is based on one originally designed and taught by Prof. Deborah Fitzgerald. Her Fall 2004 version can be viewed by following the link under Archived Courses on the right side of this page.

In diesem Kurs erhalten Sie einen Überblick über einige wichtige literarische Texte, Tendenzen und Themen aus der deutschsprachigen Literatur- und Kulturszene. Wir werden literarische Texte, Gedichte, Theaterstücke und Essays untersuchen, sowie andere ästhetische Formen besprechen, wie Film und Architektur. Da alle Texte gleichzeitig in ihrem spezifischen kulturellen Kontext gelesen werden, tragen sie zu einem Verständnis von verschiedenen historischen Aspekten bei. Unter anderen werden folgende Themen und Fragestellungen besprochen: Technologie und deren Einfluss auf die Gesellschaft, Fragen der Ethik bei wissenschaftlicher Arbeit, Konstruktion von nationaler Geschichte und kollektivem Gedächtnis.

21G.031 examines the terms “avant garde” and “Kulturindustrie” in French and German culture of the early twentieth century. Considering the origins of these concepts in surrealist and dadaist literature, art, and cinema, the course then expands to engage parallel formations across Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Emphasis on the specific historical conditions that enabled these interventions. Guiding questions are these: What was original about the historical avant-garde? What connections between art and revolution did avant-garde writers and artists imagine? What strategies did they deploy to meet their modernist imperatives? To what extent did their projects maintain a critical stance towards the culture industry?
Surveying key interventions in the fields of poetry, painting, sculpture, photography, film, and music, the readings also include signal moments in critical thought of the last century. Figures to be considered are: Adorno, Aragon, Bataille, Beckett, Brecht, Breton, Bürger, Duchamp, Eisenstein, Ernst, Jünger, Greenberg, Kandinsky, Malevich, Mayakovsky, and Tzara. Taught in English, but students are encouraged to consult original sources when possible.

1: Development
1.1: Determining Your Distribution Outlet
1.2: Understanding Your Audience
1.3: Production Styles
1.4: Video Formats
2: Releases and Contracts
2.1: Legal Protections
2.2: Image Licensing
2.3: Music Licensing
3: Scripting and Formats
3.1: Rundowns, Formats and Storyboards
3.2: Single-Column Scripts
3.3: Multi-Column Scripts
3.4: Three-Act Structure
4: Production Preparation
4.1: Planning to Shoot
4.2: The Production Bible
4.3: The Business of Filmmaking
5: Funding
5.1: The Business Plan and The Production Plan
5.2: The Film Proposal
5.3: Grants
5.4: Fellowships
5.5: Other Funding Avenues
5.6: Film Festivals
6: Set Etiquette
6.1: Who Does What
6.2: The Director's Commands
6.3: When the Shooting Stops
7: Camera Functions
7.1: DSLR vs. Mirrorless vs. Camcorders
7.2: Memory Cards
7.2.1: Formatting the SD (Memory) Card
7.3: Manual Mode
7.4: Iris/Aperture
7.5: Depth of Field
7.6: Neutral Density Filters
7.7: Gain and ISO
7.8: Focus
7.9: Frame Rate and Shutter Speed
7.10: White Balance
7.11: Lenses
8: Video Aesthetics
8.1: Basic Shot Sizes
8.2: Camera Position
8.3: Camera Movements
8.4: Lens Movements
8.5: Video Composition
8.6: Critical Focus
9: Lighting
9.1: Measuring Light
9.2: Types of Lamps
9.3: Qualities of Light
9.4: Common Lights
9.5: Light Modification and Control
9.6: Lighting Design
10: Sound
10.1: Elements of Sound
10.2: Microphones
10.2.1: Microphones Used in Video Production
10.2.2: Polar Patterns
10.3: Audio Connectors
10.4: Controlling Sound with a Video Camera
10.5: Location Audio
11: Planning/Organizing for the Edit
11.1: The Art and Craft of Editing
12: Nonlinear Systems and Requirements
12.1: Nonlinear Systems and Requirements
13: Formats/Compression
13.1: Formats/Compression
14: Editing Workflow/Assembly
14.1: Editing Workflow/Assembly
15: Rough Cuts
15.1: Rough Cuts
16: The Finishing Process
16.1: Steps of the Finishing Process
16.2: Fixing Transition Mistakes
16.3: Fixing Titles and Graphics
16.4: Fixing Color and Exposure
16.5: Video scopes for post-production
16.6: Video Tutorials on Color and Audio techniques

This course is an invitation to German film-making since the end of the Second World War. We investigate how German cinema captured the atmosphere of the immediate post-war years and discuss extensively major works of the “New German Cinema” of the Sixties and Seventies. We also look at examples of East Germany’s film production and finally observe the very different roads German cinema has been taking from the 1990’s into the present.