An undergraduate education in Film Studies provides students with an opportunity to explore the appeal and to begin to understand the operation of these complex meaning-producing machines we call cinema, television, and new technologies. The course work leading to the B.A. degree in Film Studies trains students to read and understand the audio-visual languages of modern media and new technologies and to analyze images from socioeconomic, political, aesthetic, and historical perspectives. Learning these critical viewing skills involves learning new ways of seeing. The program in Film Studies familiarizes students with the history, theory, and art of cinema and other media. Courses focus on a range of topics, including individual directors, period styles, genres, national cinemas, the history and criticism of television, and developments in new technologies.
Additional courses offer students hands-on experience in video production and screenwriting.
The program provides its majors with a thorough appreciation of the modern media's roles in contemporary society. Regular course offerings are complemented by film and video screenings and series at the School of Humanities Film and Video Center. Film Studies, in cooperation with other units at UCI, regularly invites scholars, directors, producers, and screenwriters to campus to share their work and perspectives with students. Film Studies at UCI is unique in its concentration on the history, theory, and criticism of cinema, television, and new technologies. The faculty has published books and articles on topics that include images of the Vietnam war, avant-garde directors, ethnographic film, film and postmodernism, horror cinema, women filmmakers, television performance, and new technologies.