Studying Film at SLU

Film and Representation Studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to introduce students to the techniques of film analysis and the history and theory of the cinema, as well as to critically approach the nature of “representation” in audiovisual texts such television programming, advertising, music video, news and others. Program goals are to offer students courses that support a critical engagement with audio-visual media. Among the proficiencies Film and Representational Studies courses seek to develop are:

• An ability to critically deconstruct, analyze and interpret visual, audio-visual and Web-based texts. These include cinema, television, Web pages and other emergent media, advertising, news, music videos, multi-media, and other fictional, non-fictional and hybrid categories.

 • An understanding of the politics of cultural representation around the categories of race, class, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, nationality and cultural heritage.

• A working understanding of theoretical perspectives that can be brought to bear on cinema and other forms of representations, including humanistic, feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, structural and post-structural, psychoanalytic, semiotic and audience reception.

• A deeper understanding of the craft of filmmaking through experiences with filmmaking.

Courses are offered within the program as well as in related departments.