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Screen Studies


As one of five programs within the OSU English Department, the Screen Studies program incorporates film studies, television studies, and studies in new media. The program’s most distinctive feature is the special emphasis that we give to theoretical questions about the moving image—questions that do not in any way abandon historical reflection, but instead understand history and theory as necessarily related enterprises. The interdisciplinary nature of the program emphasizes scholarship and coursework across disciplines, and encourages diverse research approaches to film and media, whether avant-garde or genre, American or international, classical or contemporary.

 

Housed in historic Morrill Hall, Screen Studies offers courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Undergraduate students may elect the Screen Option as part of their Bachelor's degree in English, while graduate students may pursue both the Master's degree and the Ph.D. in English with emphasis in Screen Studies. Courses cover a wide array of moving image productions and contexts—both American and international, fiction and non-fiction, narrative and avant-garde—and focus on the history, theory and aesthetics of screen-based representations, as well as their cultural and political impact.   

 

At the graduate level, we seek students who want to immerse themselves in critical theory as a way of opening up new ways of thinking about the moving image. In turn, we take seriously the idea that moving image theory itself should be better recognized as a form of social and philosophical reflection. We invite you to look at some selected recent graduate course offerings in Screen Studies.

 

Recent or ongoing theses and dissertations by graduate students in the Screen Studies program include: 
 

     • A theory of cinematic quotation
     • Queer representation in global cinema
     • Ethnicized masculinity in silent cinema
     • Figures of migration in E.U. cinema
     • Film schools and neoliberal film production
     • Feminist appropriation of masculine genres across media

Graduate students teach courses in the popular undergraduate Screen Studies track. Teaching assistantships and other forms of support (including tuition waivers) are available; they are awarded on a competitive basis. 

Requirements

OSU undergraduate English majors may elect to pursue the Screen Option, which provides students with a broad knowledge of film history, theory, genre, international cinema, and television studies. For further information on the Screen Option, contact Clarissa Bonner, undergraduate advisor for the English Department. 

The course of study for an M.A. in English with a concentration in Screen Studies includes 30 hours of coursework. Students are required to take an introduction to graduate study and an introduction to the teaching of composition; six hours are for the writing of a thesis. The remaining coursework is determined by the student in conjunction with his or her advisor and/or advisory committee. Students take comprehensive exams after completing their coursework. 

More information about the MA Degree Requirements

The course of study for a Ph.D. in English with a concentration in Screen Studies includes 60 hours of coursework (at least 40 credits of coursework, 15-20 dissertation hours). Students are required to take an introduction to graduate study and an introduction to the teaching of composition (unless they have already done so as part of our M.A. program); 15-20 hours are for the writing of a dissertation. The remaining coursework is determined by the student in conjunction with his or her advisor and/or advisory committee. Students take comprehensive exams after completing their coursework.

More information about the PhD Degree Requirements

Faculty

Jeff Menne, Professor, Department Head, and Director of Screen Studies (Ph.D. Vanderbilt), specializes in postwar American film and media, both Hollywood and the avant-garde. He is the author of two books (Francis Ford Coppola and Post-Fordist Cinema: Hollywood Auteurs and the Corporate Counterculture) and co-editor of a third (Film and the American Presidency). He is the associate editor of JCMS, and has published articles in numerous journals and anthologies. He teaches graduate courses on New Hollywood, Film and Media Avant-Gardes, and Critical Theory.

Stacy Takacs, Professor of American Studies (Ph.D. Indiana), is an associate of the Screen Studies Program. Her research focuses on the history of television and its role in the mediation of power relations, especially with regard to globalization and US militarism. She is the author of two books (Terrorism TV: Popular Entertainment in Post-9/11 America and Interrogating Popular Culture) and co-editor of a third (American Militarism on the Small Screen). She is also co-editor of the War on Screen book series from University of Kansas Press and has published articles in numerous journals and anthologies. She teaches graduate courses on TV Criticism, TV History, and Media Convergence.

Graig Uhlin, Associate Professor (Ph.D. New York University), researches at the intersection of film studies and the environmental humanities, with a focus on the role of non-human nature within modernist and avant-garde film practices. He has published essays addressing writing film history under the Anthropocene, ecocinema and affect theory, cinematic depictions of monkeywrenching or ecological sabotage, and vegetal metaphors in film theory. He teaches courses in film and media theory, international cinema (especially French film), and the environmental humanities.


Courses

Find out about course offerings at the Course Offerings Page.

Community and Film Series

The Screen Studies program is also home to a lively film series, Exciterbulb, which is strictly devoted to screening avant-garde films and videos in their original formats. In conjunction with the series we regularly bring in avant-garde film and video artists to screen and talk about their work. Our graduate students are thus in a relatively unique position to work on avant-garde media and to cross the theory/practice divide by engaging in conversations with artists such as Michelle Citron, Ken Jacobs, Mary Beth Reed, and Phil Solomon.

The OSU Film Society is the official student organization of the Oklahoma State University Screen Studies Program. CRASS meets monthly during Spring and Fall semesters and is dedicated to unearthing obscure and hard-to-find narrative films, while providing a forum for informal discussion and cooperative research within OSU's Screen Studies community.

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