The importance of sports to American society and popular culture cannot be denied, and this seminar will study sports films' vital significance in representing the intersection of sports, history, and social identities. This seminar explores how the role of competition between individuals and teams in sports films relate to the competing discourses on race, gender, class, and sexuality in society at large. Additionally, we will examine how social issues are understood in sporting terms and concepts, such as: the hero and the underdog; urban and rural; natural talent versus hard work; and the individual versus team identity.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for PMA 2501 - Playing out Difference: History and Identity in Sports Film

The massive success of contemporary novel and film adaptations like Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey as well as television series such as Scandal have generated new interest in media targeted to female audiences. Historically considered a "low-form" genre, women's media was not considered a legitimate object of academic study until the 1970s and 1980s when feminist media scholars shed crucial light on low form texts such as daytime soaps, Harlequin romance novels, and family melodramas, insisting that each impacted female audiences in a multitude of surprising and significant ways. Through an analysis of historical and contemporary readings, films, and televisual texts, we will explore how media designed for women specifically targets women viewers. We will identify the current debates around women's spectatorship. We will evaluate and offer a multitude of pleasures.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for PMA 3467 - Women Audiences in Film and Television