Check out the courses with open seats summer term 2025:

Summer Session 1:

CINE 199:  Cannabis in Film • Instructor:  Geoff Ostrove

To better understand the role of film in popular culture and American history, this course will look at how cannabis has been portrayed on film throughout various historical moments. Through analyzing representation of cannabis on film, from Reefer Madness (1936) to Cheech and Chong films (1971-1985) to contemporary representations, students will gain historical understanding of the ways race, class, health, policy, and American culture intersect through this this high-profile cultural phenomenon. As an introductory level course, CINE 199 introduces students to methods of inquiry common to cinema studies, including comparative historical, cultural, and textual analysis. Students will apply these methods to generate analytical and critical responses to media objects, thereby helping students develop the analytical and critical thinking skills necessary to navigate the media-saturated world around them. No prior cinema studies experience required. Credits count toward core education requirements. Credits do not count toward CINE major.

Summer Session 2:

CINE 399: South Park and Society • Instructor:  André Sirois

This class uses the animated cartoon as the launch point for understanding the representation of social issues in the media and critical cultural and social theories. In this course we will examine how South Park has represented or parodied labor/class, race, religion, capitalism, the media, gender, sexuality, patriotism, politics/democracy, celebrity, censorship, PC culture, etc. Because each episode was made the week before it was aired, we will also use the cartoon to examine the specific historical moment and social issues of that time in order to better understand the significance of each episode and its social critique.

Summer Session 3:

CINE 121:  Storytelling for Screens (New Class!) • Instructor:  Alissa Phillips

Learn to Be a Storyteller: Scriptwriting for Beginners! Fancy yourself a writer? Dream of seeing your words on a screen? Wonder how the stories you see on screen were created? Just think a creative screenwriting course sounds cool? If the answer is yes to any of these, join us and learn to be a “storyteller,” the term used in the industry to describe all players in the screenwriting process. From the big screen to your little one, whatever you watch was written by someone. And some write very well. Maybe you do too?! Broadly we call this skill screenwriting. This class is designed for beginners. You don’t need to know anything about screenwriting to enjoy and learn from this class. The only thing asked is that you have a basic desire to tell good stories. In this class we’ll explore the fundamentals of storytelling. You’ll learn about the three “C’s” – character, concept and conflict. And then you will learn how to put these into 3-act structure, writing scenes with (excellent) screen dialogue. Your work will be based on your original material so come packing with ideas for comedy, fantasy, horror, thrillers and dramas. Since much of the work of screenwriting is done before actual drafting, we’ll focus on process: from initial premise, through character exploration, to beat sheets, to writing drafts of short screenplays. You’ll learn what writers mean when they say, “writing is rewriting.” Because the craft of screenwriting is learned through the critical examination of other scripts, you’ll also read existing and original screenplays to understand how to write them. Credits count toward core education requirements. Credits do not count toward CINE major.

CINE:  230 Remix Cultures • Instructor:  André Sirois

In “Remix Cultures,” students learn the historical, practical, and critical views of “intellectual property” (IP) by analyzing everything from the UO mascot to Jay-Z. The course highlights how “ideas” are part of a remix continuum: new ideas often remix the great ideas that preceded them and will themselves be remixed in the future. Students will deconstruct the relationship between politics and economics and interrogate the everyday ways that their lives are governed by (and often break) IP laws. As a group-satisfying Arts and Letters course, Remix Cultures provides students with a broad yet fundamental knowledge of how “IP” and “innovation” impact their lives: students of all majors engage with intellectual properties daily and may seek professions in fields that valorize intellectual property. By asking all students to actively and critically engage consumer media culture as intellectual property, the course provides a better understanding of how collaborative efforts are governed by laws that typically value and reward a singular author/genius.

CINE 430:  American Animation • Instructor:  Collin Williamson

A rare opportunity to take an upper-division Cinema Studies course open to both majors and non-majors! This course explores how American animated films from Winsor McCay in the early 1900s to Walt Disney and Laika Studios have shaped and been shaped by national and international visual cultures. Deeply concerned with the labor and vision of individual artists, American animation reflects essential questions about the medium’s potential as an art of movement and transformation, an art of time, and an art of dreams, all of which are wrapped up in broader discourses on American ideals and ways of life. Our goal is to understand how animators have grappled with these questions using innovative formal and stylistic techniques that bring inanimate materials – drawings, puppets, and other objects – to life. To do this we will examine the many contexts that have shaped a wide range of films, from early hand-drawn animations and experimental films to visual music films, realist animations, and contemporary computer animations. In the process, we will consider how American animated films intersect with the politics of race, class, and gender, as well as with other arts and media, including dance, painting, and comics.