Film Studies Minor

Program Coordinator: Amanda Klein (2228 Bate Building; 252-328-6681; kleina@ecu.edu)

The minor in film studies provides students with an opportunity to study the history, theory, criticism, cultural uses, aesthetics, and production practices of cinema. The courses are designed to help students meet the new challenges they will encounter as citizens and workers in the information age and to learn how to analyze and engage critically with the visual media that has become a fixture of contemporary life. This curriculum complements a wide range of liberal arts majors by teaching students textual analysis, critical thinking, and writing skills.

This interdisciplinary minor asks students to forge connections between the discipline of film studies and other disciplines, including literature, creative writing, rhetoric, music, communications, history, foreign languages, sociology, and political science, among others. Courses in the minor will address cinema within its social, political and cultural contexts including an understanding of how race, ethnicity, gender, religion and class are constructed through the cinematic image. Courses taken towards the minor must come from at least three different prefixes (ART, COMM, ENGL, ETHN, FILM, FORL, GERM, MPRD, RELI, RUSS, SOCI, SPAN, or POLS). Courses designated as Special Topics only count toward the minor when taught as film studies. Semester hours that count toward the student’s major may not count toward the film studies minor. Other appropriate courses, including 5000-level courses, may be considered for inclusion as electives upon review by the coordinator.

Visit the Department of English Undergraduate Minors for more information. 

The minor requires 18 s.h. as follows: