This course combines professional development, a series of guest speakers, and the possibility for students if they so choose to undertake an internship related to their area of study. Professional development workshops will include sections of grant writing, conference presentation, strategies for the dissemination of their works, production and research ethics, and curriculum development. The course will run on a bi-weekly basis over the course of the academic year, alternating between professional development workshops and visiting speakers in screen cultures and curatorial studies. With the guidance of a supervisor, students will develop their own media practice, curatorial project, practice-based research, or research work, with the goal of realizing their project, and develop a timeline appropriate for the completion of a thesis in a timely manner. Instructor: Dorit Naaman

Graduate course examining the key critical and theoretical tenets of screen cultures and curatorial studies. The course shall have both historical and contemporary components in order to situate the student within various fields of debate. Theoretical approaches include phenomenological, psychoanalytic, Marxist, cognitive, formalist, post-colonial, historiographical, feminist, queer, cultural, and sociological approaches to film and media, and how these concepts and theories inform production and curation. Instructor: Scott MacKenzie

This course will examine the various histories and methodologies applicable to screen cultures and curatorial studies. Drawing on a wide range of global media and the disciplines of film and media studies, curatorial studies, gender studies, and political and critical theory, the course addresses questions such as canonicity, globalization, alternative media practices, exhibition and circulation histories, minoritarian cinemas, research-creation, and diverse production practices. The course also emphasizes how questions about the intersection between production, circulation, and exhibition inform historical and methodological approaches to screen cultures. Students will deploy these histories and methodologies to design and inform their own research, creative, and curatorial projects. Instructor: Gary Kibbins

This course will combine production and theory in order for students to learn how to create innovative, interdisciplinary, and informed media productions and analysis. It will include modules and workshops in pre-production, production, and post-production, as well as labs on a variety of analog and digital audio, video, and new media platforms. Instructor: Emily Pelstring

This graduate seminar course addresses the histories, theories and issues of curatorial practice as a tool of cultural agency and considers evolving paradigms of “the curatorial.” Through critical analysis and engagement with readings and defined case studies, the class will investigate the forces and frameworks that shape the creation and presentation of exhibitions, programs and screenings, ranging across such topics as exhibition/presentation formats, material and digital forms of narrative building, local and global circuits of reception, audience-making, resources/markets, festivals, institutional types and collections. Addressing both conceptual frameworks and the political economy of curatorial practice, students will consider the roles of belief systems/values, policy, politics, funding agencies and philanthropists as these impact cultural expression and exchange. Instructor: Alicia Boutilier

This production-oriented graduate course explores the development of exhibitions, programs, screenings and collections, with emphasis on drawing out and cultivating their relationship to context. Students will develop advanced understanding of curatorial methods, applied standards and innovative experimentation through projects fusing autonomous creative research, articulation and collaboration. The course offers a modular framework to support and enable students to encounter and experience practical strategies for the successful realization of artistic programs in visual and media arts, an approach applicable to both contemporary and historical works. Instructor: Sunny Kerr

Individual directed reading course under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. Fall or Winter. Under supervision by a faculty member, Graduate students may conduct intensive reading, curation, or production in an area not offered in core or elective courses that supports graduate research on applications of screen cultures and curatorial studies. Readings and project are to be arranged in consultation with the sponsoring faculty member and joined by meetings during the term to discuss readings and submissions.