Coordinator: Professor Elizabeth Alsop

The Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Email: filmstudies@gc.cuny.edu

https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Filmstudies

FACULTY

Elizabeth Alsop, Leah Anderst, Sreenjaya Banerjee, William Boddy, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Jerry Carlson, Noel Carroll, Cynthia Chris, Anselmo Di Iorio, Marc Dolan, Racquel Gates, David Gerstner, Michael Gillespie, Alison Griffiths, Amy Herzog, Peter Hitchcock, Alexandra Juhasz, Robert Kapsis, Wayne Koestenbaum, Ivone Margulies, Paula Massood, Joseph McElhaney, Edward Miller, Eugenia Paulicelli, Joyce Rheuban, Boukary Sawadogo, Paul Smith, Noah Tsika, Nicole Wallenbrock

THE PROGRAM

The Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures offers students the critical skills and knowledge needed to comprehend cinema as a discrete discipline with its own methodology. The required courses, however, are also designed to provide historical, theoretical, and critical perspectives on the cinema derived from a variety of disciplines. They aim to stimulate exploration of the connections between film and traditional fields of inquiry such as theatre, art history, sociology, political science, and languages and literatures. The multi- and interdisciplinary approach encourages students to integrate film scholarship with their doctoral studies, enabling significant new insights into a medium with immense social resonance throughout the world. Faculty with expertise in film studies drawn from a wide variety of doctoral programs, including Art History, English, French, Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures, History, Sociology, and Theatre, are available to help guide student research and writing in the field.

Resources for Research and Training

New York City is the prime location for the study of cinema in the United States. Many of the world’s most important film study centers, archives, and libraries, notably those at the Museum of Modern Art, the Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Television and Radio, and Anthology Film Archives are located here. It is also home to the widest range of commercial and noncommercial exhibition venues in the United States. These include such world-famous institutions as the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, and a host of important smaller screening spaces such as Anthology Film Archives.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CERTIFICATE IN FILM STUDIES

The Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures is open to students already enrolled in a program at CUNY Graduate Center. Candidates for the certificate must take a total of 15 credits (five courses) in Film Studies including a required three-course “core” and two additional electives offered under the auspices of any participating Ph.D. program or the certificate program itself. Many courses are simultaneously cross-listed in several doctoral and interdisciplinary programs to facilitate student enrollment.

Applicants to the Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures who are not already enrolled in a doctoral or master’s program at the Graduate Center may apply for admission, if they have an M.A. or M.F.A. degree at the time of enrollment.

Requirements for admission are on the program’s website: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/film-studies

STANDALONE CERTIFICATE ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

Applicants to the Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures who are not already enrolled in a doctoral or master’s program at the Graduate Center must apply for admission. Requirements for admission are as follows:

Deadline

Fall Enrollment: Application due April 15. We only accept applications for fall enrollment.

Prerequisite

In order to be eligible for admission, applicants must have completed an M.A. or M.F.A. from an accredited college or university or its international equivalent. Successful applicants generally have a cumulative overall GPA of 3.0 (B average) or higher. GRE scores are not required.

Applicants who do not have a post-secondary degree from an institution in which the language of instruction is English-only and located in a country that recognizes English as an Official Language must have taken either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test.

Requirements

Applicants must submit the following materials:

A $75 nonrefundable application fee. The application fee is waived for United States Armed Services Veterans and McNair Scholars.

A completed online application form: Prospective students must submit an application form through the Graduate Center’s online application system.

Please note: If you are unable to find the Film Studies program listed alphabetically on the Application Information page, scroll to the bottom of the program drop-down menu.

Higher Education transcripts: Unofficial transcripts must be uploaded from each college or university attended even if you did not complete a degree or did not enroll in courses in your current field. Official transcripts must be submitted upon acceptance.

Resume or CV

Applicant Statement: please upload a personal statement of no more than 2,000 words. The statement describes the applicant’s academic and professional background, relationship to film and media studies, and the applicant’s goals in seeking the Standalone Certificate.

Three references: Please provide the email address and contact information of at least three academic or professional references who can appraise your academic or professional achievement and promise. Letters are not required. Select <No> for the question “Will this provider be submitting the letter of recommendation online?” This ensures that we will receive contact info for your recommenders, but they won’t be sent a letter request.

Unofficial TOEFL or IELTS scores to fulfill the English Language Proficiency prerequisite, if applicable.

Courses

Required Courses

The following required courses are offered through the Ph.D. Program in Theatre. All are 42 hours, 3 credits.

THEA 71400 Aesthetics of the Film

THEA 71500 History of Cinema I, 1895-1930

or

THEA 71600 History of Cinema II, 1930 to the Present

THEA 81600 Seminar in Film Theory: Theories of the Cinema

Elective Courses

The Film Studies Certificate Program offers the following elective course:

FSCP 81000 Selected Topics in Film Studies

42 hours, 3 credits

Recent Elective Courses

Alfred Hitchcock and His Legacy

Avant-Garde Film and Video

Captured Bodies, Migrating Spirits: Slavery and Its Historical Legacy in the Cinemas of the Americas

Chinese Cinema in the Era of Globalism

Constructivism and Cinema: The Films and Film Theory of Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Vertov

Cultural Theory and the Documentary

Cyborgs and the Cinematic Imagination

Eisenstein: Politics, Theatre, Film, Theory

Film and American Culture in the 1930s

Film Music

Film Noir in Context

Gay and Lesbian Experimental Film

Hollywood–Paris–Hollywood

Holocaust Memories: Films, Monuments, and Museums

Magical Realism and Film in Global Perspective

Passing, Lynching and Jim Crow: Oscar Micheaux and His Circle in U.S. Cinema

Realism and Naturalism in Film and Literature

Stars: Film Personalities and the Writing of Fandom

Theatricality in Film

Department: Film Studies