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Current students: Visit insideND Class Search for more detailed information about credits, class meeting times, pre- or co-requisites, and cross-listings.

FTT Professor Matt Hawkins leading a lecture during the Musical Theatre Lab class

Courses with * fulfill the International/Identity requirement.

Fall 2026

Core Film Courses

FTT 20101/21101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab | Michael Kackman & Mary Kearney

This class is designed to enhance your understanding and appreciation of film and television. It operates on the philosophy that the better we understand how film and television texts work, the more intelligently and perceptively we will be able to consume them, which is an invaluable skill to have in our media-saturated world. You will learn about the basic elements that distinguish films and television programs from other aesthetic forms, such as editing, cinematography, sound and set design, and how these components work together to develop stories and characters. We will also work with interpretive frameworks that uncover deeper meanings and patterns in film and television, such as genre theory, the idea of authorship, political economy, and ideological analysis. Finally, you will acquire the skills and tools needed to write your own educated analyses of film and television texts. The class screenings present a range of films, from Hollywood classics to independent and international films, as well as television shows both old and new. This course is required for all concentrators in Film and Television.

FTT 30201/31201: Global Cinema I | Lab | Ted Barron

This class traces major developments, movements, artists, and aesthetics within global film culture from the beginning of cinema in the 1890s to about 1950. We will consider different national cinemas from Europe and Asia, as well as the rise of Hollywood and emergent African American cinema. We will consider certain prominent directors and film movements with attention to how they conceive of cinema, and will read contemporary theories and critiques of cinema. We will consider the development of the film industry and technical developments that shift the aesthetic, and changes in modes of production and distribution, and spectatorship. We will consider cinema in the context of modernity to consider how cinema reflects, refracts, transmutes and negotiates the effects of modernity to consider cinematic responses to urbanism, changing gender roles, mass production, race and immigration, among other topics.

FTT 30456: Critical Approaches to Screen Cultures | James Collins

In this course, students will learn different theories, methods, and approaches to understanding and writing about screen cultures. We will explore approaches that consider aesthetics/style, narrative, authorship (directors, show runners, stars), genre (e.g. the musical, horror), history (history of film/media industries, history of visual spectacle, historical context for films/media, etc.), technologies (sound, color, digital technologies, etc.), identities (considerations of gender, sexuality, race, nation, age, etc.), and audience (reception, fandom). Students will: Read theories that articulate and advocate each approach; consider the parameters, value, and appeal of that approach, as well as its limitations; practice each approach in written exercises; and research and write a final paper using one or more of these approaches. Students may also use video essays or other media as tools of analysis and critique. This is a course in academic criticism, not journalistic reviewing. Strong emphasis will be placed on argumentative writing.

Core Television Courses

FTT 20101/21101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab | Michael Kackman & Mary Kearney

This class is designed to enhance your understanding and appreciation of film and television. It operates on the philosophy that the better we understand how film and television texts work, the more intelligently and perceptively we will be able to consume them, which is an invaluable skill to have in our media-saturated world. You will learn about the basic elements that distinguish films and television programs from other aesthetic forms, such as editing, cinematography, sound and set design, and how these components work together to develop stories and characters. We will also work with interpretive frameworks that uncover deeper meanings and patterns in film and television, such as genre theory, the idea of authorship, political economy, and ideological analysis. Finally, you will acquire the skills and tools needed to write your own educated analyses of film and television texts. The class screenings present a range of films, from Hollywood classics to independent and international films, as well as television shows both old and new. This course is required for all concentrators in Film and Television.

FTT 30455: Critical Approaches to Television | Lida Zeitlin-Wu

This course offers an introductory survey of the primary critical approaches used to analyze television, and thus serves as a foundation for other TV-specific courses within the major. Through an examination of pioneering and contemporary studies of television, we will explore how television has been analyzed as a communication medium, a technological apparatus, a commercial industry, and a cultural forum, as well as a form of recreation, education, and social bonding. We will also consider critical approaches that focus on how television shapes our personal identities and values. While examining methods developed to study TV production, reception, and texts, we will explore such concepts as publicness, liveness, quality, art, and representation. In addition to discussing how television was analyzed in the past, we will consider how both television and TV studies have changed as a result of globalization, industrial convergence, digital media, and participatory culture.

FTT 30461: History of Television | Michael Kackman

Television has been widely available in the United States for only half a century, yet aleady it has become a key means through which we understand our culture. Our course examines this vital medium from three perspectives. First, we will look at the industrial, economic and technological forces that have shaped U.S. television since its inception. These factors help explain how U.S. television adopted the format of advertiser-supported broadcast networks and why this format is changing today. Second, we will explore television's role in American social and political life: how TV has represented cultural changes in the areas of gender, class, race and ethnicity. Third, we will discuss specific narrative and visual strategies that characterize program formats. Throughout the semester we will demonstrate how television and U.S. culture mutually influence one another, as television both constructs our view of the world and is affected by social and cultural forces within the U.S.

Core Theatre Courses

FTT 30015: Theatre Production Process | Marcus Stephens

In this class, we will participate in the Notre Dame Theater production process, learn what goes into its creation, and who is involved. We will explore the design and literary context for the theater productions during each semester, discuss the roles and duties, and support its execution. Students will participate in show crew duties, help to construct designs, and academically research related topics. Ultimately, we will be creating a conversation about the Notre Dame Theater production experience.

FTT 30714: World Theatre: Text and Performance Across Cultures | Patrick McKelvey

This course examines world theatre history from the origins of performance to the present. Students learn techniques of script analysis, performance analysis, and independent research as tools for analyzing theatre from the literary, aesthetic, and historical perspectives. Throughout, the course emphasizes the importance of cultural context and historiography to understanding the creation and transformation of theatre as an art form. Each semester will be a stand-alone course and can be taken in any order. Students are encouraged to enroll in adjacent semesters. At least one semester of this sequence is a prerequisite for the upper-level electives required to complete the major.

Electives

FTT 20270: Shakespearean Tragedy and its Afterlives | Kristen Sieranski

The pages of magical realist literature are inhabited with spirits, shapeshifters, and sprites alongside the most mundane phenomena—a leaky faucet, a city bus that doesn’t run on time, a meal that could taste a bit better. What does this juxtaposition achieve? How does the heightened sense of realness and unrealness in this emerging literary genre ask us to think about the worlds these texts create, as well as the world we inhabit when we put the books down? In this class, “Magical Realism: Spells, Specters, and Shapeshifters” we will consider how the genre of magical realism uses supernatural phenomena to engage with very real and, unfortunately, everyday problems like racism, colonization, misogyny, partition, and violence. We will examine how this form adapts to specific circumstances (such as the United States in the aftermath of slavery, or India in the aftermath of independence and partition). We will also consider how its generic conventions transcend nation and region.

FTT 20310: Contemporary Drama | Tarryn Chun

1. cr. hr.
 
How does contemporary drama from around the world engage with pressing social, political, economic, and environmental issues? The one-credit course examines prominent new plays from the twenty-first century that provoke audiences—and readers—to think critically about the world in which we live. For each play, we will discuss its development process, historically contextualize its core questions and issues represented, examine innovations in narrative structure and characterization, and connect text to the challenges of theatrical staging. Meets weekly for one hour on Fridays. All readings in English or English translation.

FTT 21001: Acting: Process | Sarah Gitenstein

Acting Process introduces the student to the core techniques of acting for the stage. The course engages both the analytical and the creative mind as students use research and analysis to support their physical, vocal and imaginative approaches to creating compelling scripted and improvised scenes. Students will rehearse and prepare scenes outside of class (with a partner and solo) for in-class performance. All students must see two live theatrical performances and turn in a reflection for each.

FTT 30017: Body On Stage: Best Practices | Sarah Gitenstein

This course explores how theater, film, and TV actors, directors, and artists can implement best practices to create equitable production and rehearsal environments. Through readings, case studies, and hands-on lab work, students will examine the politics and history of the mind/body relationship and its influence on contemporary creative processes. Topics include creating open and inclusive spaces, Check-Ins, and the role of intimacy direction in harm-reduction practice, culminating in a workshop with a professional intimacy choreographer. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to become more radically inclusive and conscientious artists and leaders.

FTT 30050: Film Curation | Ricky Herbst

1 cr. hr.

This course explores how films are booked and exhibited and, moreover, how to best serve audiences through thoughtful, engaging, and provoking film curation. Students will collaborate to program Notre Dame Film Society's weekly screenings, which involves writing copy, recruiting discussants, and creating programs involving feature films, short films, and other media.

FTT 30103: Europe Through Film | James Collins

1 cr. hr.

What can we learn about Europe by exploring its cinema? Based on an extended version of the Institute's film series each semester, the content of this course will focus on the relationship between contemporary European cinema and the European ideas and realities it finds compelling in terms of social and imaginative power. The course will include some history of cinema, but emphasis will be laid on using cinema as a way of stimulating questions about the nature of Europe today. Open to students of all years and majors.

FTT 30143: Broadcasting the News | Colleen Wilcox

This course is a practical immersion into the world of broadcast journalism. Class will function much like a television newsroom, with time dedicated to workshopping and exploring a variety of reporting techniques. Students will spend time outside of the classroom engaging with asynchronous materials, practicing on-camera skills, and exploring the many roles that make up a newsroom. Students will build a professional reel or portfolio to demonstrate storytelling techniques essential to broadcasting the news.

FTT 30173: Video Games and the American West | Ashlee Bird

Video Games of the American West will utilize digital games as the primary case studies to examine the modern cultural image, understanding of, and interaction with the "space" of the American West. This class will provide historical understandings of the vast, varied, and often mythologized history of the American West, as well as its place as a cite of continued colonial narratives and hegemonic imagery in contemporary popular media such as film, television, and video games. Through the close-playing of a variety of Western games including installations from the Call of Juarez series, Red Dead Redemption, series, Horizon, series, and many others, students will be asked to apply their knowledge of the historical and contemporary understandings and employments of the West as a physical space and a cultural space to the visual and mechanical recreations of it within the digital realm of video games.

FTT 30175: Race, Activism, and Global Citizenship in the Age of Paul Robeson | Korey Garibaldi

“Paul Robeson in the American Century” examines the life and times of one of this nation’s most famous yet understudied figures during the middle decades of the twentieth-century. Over the course of the semester, our readings and discussions will revisit Robeson’s accomplishments as a preeminent college athlete, intellectual, and cultural icon, to better understand the social and political history of the U.S. prior to the legal dismantling of racial segregation. We will also trace how Robeson became one of America’s most internationally recognized entertainers and political activists, despite formal and informal efforts to undermine his commitments to the civil rights movement at home, and human rights abroad. Drawing on scholarly tools that are central to the discipline of American Studies—e.g., the critical analysis of social categories, citizenship and imperial politics—our readings, lectures, and conversations will investigate and unpack how Robeson reshaped the meaning and geographic scope of modern freedom. Required texts will range from primary documents preserved in archival collections to carefully-selected excerpts of secondary materials written by leading Robeson scholars and biographers.

FTT 30203: "Charlie Don't Surf" and Other Stories from Southeast Asia | Eric Haanstad

In Apocalypse Now (1979), a single phrase marks an iconic enemy and creates a chain of associations that separate Western Selves from Eastern Others. The story behind the phrase, "Charlie don't surf," is one of many complex narratives characterizing the Southeast Asian region that call for further critical understanding. This course is an anthropological journey through Southeast Asia, a region rich in cultural diversity, linguistic complexity and archaeological significance. Including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma), students can explore the ecological, historical, and socio-cultural patterns of this ethnographic region through analyses of its societies and institutions. With a holistic approach to the cultural influences that characterize Southeast Asia, we will chart the region's indigenous, social, political, economic, artistic and religious formations over time. The course offers a broad overview of the historical factors affecting the region, including the impact of Indian, Islamic, Chinese, and European exchange, colonization, and violence. These transregional influences provide a window from which to view contemporary issues in the cultural politics and economics of Southeast Asia. The course provides an overview of the major cultural features of the region to enable students to gain a better understanding of the current developments within the region and the lives of Southeast Asians. Overall, we will contribute to the development of anthropological ideas about Asia while also providing a means to organize and analyze Asian ethnographic perspectives.

FTT 30238: Writing the Short Film | Terrance Brown

This course is an introduction to the theory and craft of dramatic screenwriting. The class explores how a script is developed from concept to final written form. Through lectures, film viewing, and weekly exercises, emphasis is placed on plot and story structure, the adaptation of ideas into cinematic forms, how to tell a story with images, character, plot, and dialogue development. Each student writes two short 8-12 page scripts developed within the context of the workshop.

FTT 30277: Love Yourz | Pyar Seth

What does it mean to love—deliberately, politically, rhythmically—under conditions of precarity, displacement, and exhaustion? How does love shape legislation, organize communities, and drive political movements? What does love do for the body? How does love structure who we eat with, grieve with, fight for, and tend to? This course positions love not as a private sentiment, but as both a research methodology and strategic form of political action. Drawing from Black studies, performance theory, feminist thought, and critical data studies, students will examine love across multiple analytic scales: from saved voicemails and lullabies to photographs tucked into wallets and letters never sent. Moving between the quantitative and the qualitative, the archive and the body, students will interrogate those critical gaps between ‘countable’ institutional metrics and the depths of our affective lives. In doing so, we might be able to build a world accountable to both.

FTT 30350: Global Korean Cinema | Hayun Cho

From Bora Kim’s House of Hummingbird to Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Korean cinema is a contemporary cultural force that circulates in and beyond Korea. This course examines how Korean cinema is globally inflected in its content, production, and reception. We will explore independent and blockbuster films by Korean filmmakers from the 1950s to the present day that encompass melodrama, auteur cinema, comedy, science fiction, documentary films, historical dramas, and more. We will engage scholarship from fields such as cultural studies, cinema and media studies, performance studies, and gender and sexuality studies. All course materials are in English and no knowledge of Korean is required. This course fulfills the literature and culture requirement for the Korean minor.

FTT 30357: Shadow of the Empire in Cinema: Contemporary Russian and Ukrainian Film | Tetyana Shlikhar

Over the last two decades of Putin's presidency, Russia's geopolitical strength and imperial ambition were placed at the center of Russia's political line. Military incursions in the neighboring countries have expanded Russia's territorial claims and reasserted its aspirations to former Soviet spheres of influence. While Russian identity continued to be imperial after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians set off on a journey of building their national identity. The course considers how post-Soviet cinema revives tropes and aesthetic tendencies of the earlier periods, such as stark depictions of the self and Other, spiritual superiority and monumentalism, as well as updates them for a contemporary context. The class explores the Putin-era Russian cinema and Ukrainian national cinema of the last two decades in the light of the common past that these two countries share and how the past is reshaped for the present. No previous knowledge of Russian is required, the course is taught fully in English.

FTT 30410/31410: Introduction to Film & Television Production | Lab | Cecilia Kim & Ted Mandell

An introductory course in the fundamentals of shooting, editing, and writing for narrative film and television productions. This is a hands-on production course emphasizing aesthetics, creativity, and technical expertise. The course requires significant amounts of filming and editing outside of class. Students produce three short film projects learning the basics of visual storytelling, including cinematography, lighting, sound recording, editing, sound mixing, and other post production techniques. These are all essential tools used to tell a story. The course challenges students not only to master basic skills but ultimately to craft compelling visual narratives.

FTT 30415: Indie Film Producing | George Sikharulidze

If you've been wondering about the role of a creative film producer, especially focusing on indie, low-budget production, this course is for you. Gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a producer in the contemporary film industry. Learn essential tools and gain practical insight into areas as diverse as script development, pitching, breaking down script, scheduling, budgeting and funding, as well as the legal aspects of pre-production, production and post-production and film festivals, marketing and sales strategies.

* FTT 30520: Drama & Poetry in Ukraines at War: Representatives of Injustice and Resilience in Ukraine, 2014 - 2022 | Romana Huk

When war comes, many might imagine that theatre and other forms of performance stop. But, among the many forms of resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a vast increase in the number of new plays representing the suffering and the resilience of the Ukrainian people, many of which have already been translated into English. There has, in contrast, been less attention paid to other forms of performance writing: for example, poetry being created for, or disseminated through, digital media, reaching audiences instantly with all the urgency of the moment. This course has as its central aim the exploration of these materials, both ones already in English translation and ones that might become available. It seeks to understand what has been created and how it is disseminated as cultural practice during the Russian invasion. It will run as a classroom on the Notre Dame campus, meeting simultaneously with one taught in English at the Ukrainian Catholic University, enabling collaboration and shared learning between ND and UCU students.

FTT 30655: Technical Concepts of Visual Effects I | John Slaughter & Ramzi Bualuan

Technical Concepts of Visual Effects I seeks to introduce students to fundamental concepts of 3D modeling and animation as used in the field of visual effects. Lessons will focus on the technical implementation of concepts such as polygonal modeling, texturing, scripting, rigging, animation, and rendering. The software used in the course is Autodesk Maya, Adobe Substance Painter, and DaVinci Resolve for editing rendered video. The class is taught from the perspective that it seeks to introduce and prepare students for a typical production studio work environment, with emphasis on a pipeline workflow. This course consists of class lectures, tutorials, and projects.

FTT 30707: Musical Theatre Dance | Abigail Zimmern

This course introduces the theory of movement in regards to musical theatre, and how it relates to style and character, while exploring physical and emotional risk. This class will be a physically rigorous approach towards body awareness with the study of dance, choreography and theatre movement for the musical. We will be engaged in a variety of iconic dance choreography from a variety of different musical styles, while working on overall movement for the musical stage. Throughout the course there will be exercises to explore our physicality as well as creating a physically based ensemble within the class through dance and movement. We will also gain experience in learning dance choreography and what it would be like to be in a rehearsal process for a musical. You will sweat.

FTT 30708: Performance Techniques: How to Act a Song | Matt Hawkins

The intention of this course is to provide you with a context within which to understand the techniques of musical theatre performance and the foundational skills needed to personally inhabit these techniques. This course will give you the tools to "act a song." You will work on analysis and performance of five songs from the following categories: Golden Age, Modern, Rock, Pop and any other kind of song you love. These songs are assigned by era sequentially so that we may simultaneously introduce the context of this material within the genre-at-large. You will also apply your growing knowledge of technique and context to intelligently observe and comment on the work of your peers within a structured setting. Throughout the course we will incorporate short group exercises to better explore performance technique and promote a deeper understanding of the differences between traditional script/text analysis and score/lyric analysis. There will be reflection papers due after the exploration of your songs.

FTT 30801: Scene Design | Marcus Stephens

This is a beginner's course in basic scenic design techniques and hand drafting for the stage. This course will take the student through the process of design from how to read a script, research, presentation, rendering, basic drafting, and if time allows, model building. No previous experience necessary. Materials fee TBA.

FTT 30809: Story Structure | Anne García-Romero

Story Structure is designed to engage students in exploring a variety of approaches to playwriting and screenwriting structure. The course will delve into structural analysis utilizing models from contemporary world theater and film with the aim to present a variety of paths toward creating new, vibrant plays and screenplays. Students will write one act plays and short screenplays throughout this course, which culminates in a public reading of their work. This course is ideal for any student interested in writing for theater and film.

FTT 30916: Black Noir | Chante Mouton Kinyon

In the summer of 1946 French cinemas were flooded with the likes of The Maltese Falcon, Laura, and The Woman in the Window, films that had been delayed for international distribution because of the war. When Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton saw these American films made during the war, the critics decided that the films and their characters were "black" or "dark," thus defining the genre as film noir. In this genre, the mostly white characters occupy an indeterminate space, commit moral transgressions, and border on nihilism. In discussions of the noir genre, films and novels by and/or about black people are marginalized. Novels such as Chester Himes's If He Hollers Let Him Go or Donald Goines's Never Die Alone complicate the genre because the works are black in ideology and essence. These characters do not need to fall from grace to be black, they are black and, consequently, the pursuit of duplicitous lifestyles in black noir works tends to highlight the social injustices black Americans suffer in America making many black noir titles protests against mainstream white America as well. In this course, we will study black American literature that focuses the noir genre on black people themselves. Gritty, urban crime novels that attempt to expose inequities in black American lives and dispel the notion that a descent from whiteness results in blackness. Rather, the black people in these texts exist in darkness because they are living in alienated communities. We shall investigate how the noir genre is altered when "noirs" are the subjects and the authors. In addition to primary texts, the course will also engage critical responses to these works. Note: This class includes a field trip to Noir City Film Festival in Chicago in September.

FTT 31008: Acting: Text and Technique | Siiri Scott

This upper level acting course will focus on the intersection between written and embodied (performed) text. The class will use scripts from film, television and theatre to practice the actor's craft of close reading: students can learn to look beyond the explicit facts in a given scene to uncover the implicit information that feeds objectives and intentions. Daily classes will explore the relationship between close reading and strong artistic choices. We will begin the semester solidifying the basic acting techniques of improvisation, physicality, intention and subtext and move quickly into textual analysis. Students will be required to create detailed scene breakdowns with scene studies and to rehearse weekly outside of class time.

FTT 31018: Production and Performance | Matt Hawkins & Sarah Gitenstein

1–3 cr. hrs.

This course is open to students interested in becoming involved with specific performing/non-performing roles on a departmental production. This research driven course will examine the history of the production and research prior performances and the significance of the play in the overall scope of Theatre History. Additional areas of research include dramaturgy of the production, historical context of the story, historical sources and innovative performance techniques, etc. This research will support the work of the designers and performers, as members of the class work to implement their research in an finished production. The course also seeks to teach the students all of the lesser know aspects of bringing a play and a musical into performance.

FTT 37600: Notre Dame Film Society | Christine Becker

1 cr. hr.

The Film Society is a film screening group that meets on Sunday nights in the Browning Cinema to watch an independent, international, or classic film. Students can take the course for either zero credit or one credit S/U. Those taking it for one credit will have a minimum attendance and writing requirement. Contact the sponsoring professor for more information.

FTT 40020: Musical Theatre Laboratory: Workshopping The Musical | Matthew Hawkins

The intention of this course is to provide a collaborative space for students to create, develop and/or workshop a new musical. Throughout the process of creation we will explore how to collaborate as a creative team, including directors, writers, music directors, choreographers, actors and stage managers. This is an effort to allow class time to be rehearsal and development time for new artistic work. The hope of this class is to support the innovation of new work and prepare it for the possibility of heading towards production. - Please contact the instructor directly for approval to take the course.

FTT 40023: Musical Theatre Minor Capstone | Matt Hawkins

A capstone of the Musical Theatre Minor is a 3-credit course. The capstone will be project based, and individually designed towards the student's interest. The specifics of the capstone will be agreed upon between the student and the instructor and ultimately approved by the instructor. The chosen topic for the capstone project is intended to reflect the student's interest in Musical Theater and how it relates to their studies in the Minor. See instructor for details. Departmental Approval is needed to register for this course.

FTT 40030: Performing Blackness | La Donna Forsgren

This interdisciplinary course utilizes performance studies, queer, and black feminist theories to investigate the performance of blackness in film, television, and theatre. We will interrogate blackness as a complex racial signifier that has been constructed and appropriated for a variety of reasons, including political galvanization. Although our case study begins with early European blackface performative practices, the bulk of our exploration focuses on contemporary performances of blackness in the United States. We will view a variety of performances, ranging from Jay-Z's "The Story of O.J." to NBC's The Wiz Live!, in order to better understand why blackness, as a performative gesture, continues to matter. Assignments include: discussion prompts, a presentation, and final creative research project.

FTT 40031: African American Musicals in Film | La Donna Forsgren

This course traces the development of African American musicals as they cross different social, cultural, and aesthetic boundaries. The course invites students to contextualize a variety of musical performance traditions - ranging from 19th c. blackface minstrelsy to today's television hip hop era Empire - through the lens of black feminist and queer theories. In so doing, students will engage in critical discussions about how individual artists, spectators and African American musical productions more broadly have signified, reaffirmed, and challenged dominant US society's understandings of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The course is divided into four units of study: "Early Black Musical Performance" reconsiders the contributions of black women minstrel and vaudeville performers; "Hollywood's Black-Cast Musical" explores mainstream representation of black folk culture in iconic films such as Carmen Jones and Show Boat; "New" Black Musicals of the 1970's considers revolutionary off-Broadway musicals and queer reimagining of the 1975 Broadway hit The Wiz; and "Contemporary Musical Performances" brings our discussion to the present with an exploration of gospel musicals on Broadway, hip hop era and Madea mania. Assessment includes: participation; leading a discussion of a film, play, or televised performance; and four short critical response papers.

* FTT 40032: Politics and Performance in Modern China | Tarryn Chun

Politics has always been theatrical, but perhaps nowhere has this been taken to such an extreme as in modern China. From the celebrity-like "cult of personality" surrounding Chairman Mao Zedong to student protests to performances like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China has been home to some of the most spectacular political displays of the last century. This course explores how and why political performance became such a prominent phenomenon in China, especially under the People's Republic (PRC), through two lines of inquiry. First, it examines how theatre and performance themselves have been used as political tools, both in support of and in protest against ruling regimes. Second, it looks at the ways in which political events such as mass rallies, show trials, and protests have taken on highly performative and theatrical qualities in the Chinese context. It considers cases that relate directly to state and Party politics, as well as to the politics of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Through this course, students gain a deeper understanding of modern China, as well as the critical and theoretical tools necessary to analyze political theatre and theatrical politics in China and beyond. All readings in English or English translation. No prior study of China or Chinese language required.

FTT 40045/41045 The Coen Brothers: Authorship and Contemporary Hollywood | Lab | TBD

The Big Lebowski. No Country for Old Men. Fargo. For over 35 years Joel and Ethan Coen - a. k. a. the Coen Bros. - have been busy crafting their own enigmatic and idiosyncratic oeuvre that incorporates slapstick comedy, Judaism, dark humor, pastiche, nihilism, irony, and the meaning of life. This upper-division seminar examines their creative filmmaking partnership by analyzing the majority of their Hollywood projects. In particular, we will deconstruct their narrative strategies by attending to their creative choices regarding editing, cinematography, lighting, mise-en-scène, etc., and we will examine their films? major thematic concerns. We will also discuss how their work complicates auteur theory and genre theory as theoretical frameworks for understanding film authorship that defies easy definition and categorization.

FTT 40046: Writing the TV Drama | Terrance Brown

This course is an introduction to the theory and craft of writing a dramatic one-hour television series. The class explores how a one-hour series script is developed and written. Through lectures, show viewings, weekly analysis and script/show bible readings, students will learn the process of taking an original idea and growing it into a dramatic series concept, a script, and a show bible. Students will engage in class discussions on the merits and deficiencies of existing dramatic series scripts and corresponding viewings. Weekly written analyses will inform the production of students final 60-70 page original screenplays.

FTT 40052/41052: East Asian Cinema | Lab | Cecilia Kim

This undergraduate film seminar course will study East Asian cinema and its social and historical context mostly between the 1980s and early 2000s. We will focus primarily on three large topics/movements within East Asia: Slow Cinema, Neo-Noir, and contemporary short form film. Navigating the general arc of Trans-East Asian film history, we will learn to recognise the localized global through readings and films by prominent filmmakers such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wong Kar Wai, and Park Chan Wook, that define genres of East Asian film.

FTT 40265: Dramatic Storytelling on the Small Screen: From Broadcast to Mobile | Christine Becker

This course examines the evolution of U.S. scripted drama on small screens, tracing its lineage from the 1950s “Golden Age” to today’s mobile landscape. The class will chart how the aesthetic grammar of TV drama took shape in the network era, expanded in the multi-channel and post-network eras, and is currently being redefined by mobile devices and short-form digital fiction. Beyond the screen, we’ll analyze the shift from a television monoculture, where millions watched together, to a fragmented world of personalized, on-demand mobile viewing, assessing the effects of consuming dramatic forms through these different viewership modes. By analyzing formats ranging from the 60-minute broadcast hour to the 60-second vertical video, we will investigate what has changed and what has endured across the history of small-screen scripted drama in the U.S. Assignments may include a mix of exams, written assignments, and multimodal options, such as pitch decks and video essays.

FTT 40378: Chromatic Storytelling: Exploring Color, Light and Story | William Donaruma

Color is not decoration. It is a narrative instrument as precise as dialogue, as expressive as performance, and as technically demanding as any craft in filmmaking. This course treats color and light as a unified system — one that begins the moment a lens points at a subject and ends only when a final graded frame reaches an audience's screen. Students move through the full arc of that journey: the physics and perception of light, the chemical and digital history of cinema's evolving palette, the craft of cinematography and lighting design, and the technical workflows of color grading and finishing. Weekly assignments draw from the full breadth of cinema history, while lab sessions give students hands-on time with industry-standard tools. Why does Amélie feel warm and whimsical while Parasite feels cold and suffocating? Why did the Coen Brothers drain all the color from No Country for Old Men? And what on earth is a LUT? This course answers all of these questions — and will ruin movies for you forever (in the best possible way).

FTT 40405: From Script to Screen: Filmmaking in Practice | George Sikharulidze

How does a script become a film? This course explores the creative process of translating a narrative vision into a cinematic reality. Confidence on a film set comes from rigorous preparation. As such, this course offers a deep dive into the artistic workflows that help filmmakers maximize their time and creative output. By stepping into the shoes of key department heads, from director, cinematographer, production designer, editor to producer, students learn how to realize their voices into a singular vision. The course will examine these interconnected roles with a specialized focus on pre-production through hands-on practice and tools that will include shooting exercises, creating shotlists, storyboards, floorplans, line scripts, film budgets, call sheets and shooting schedules.

FTT 40410: Intermediate Filmmaking | William Donaruma

Through hands-­on, field experience and critical analysis, we will explore the tools and techniques used to produce professional video and digital cinema projects in all genres. We will explore the use of composition, cinematography, color and editing to create a narrative structure. This class will also provide you with a technical knowledge of the tools required in professional filmmaking including a variety of lighting and grip equipment, lenses, filters, light meters, etc. Using RED Digital Cinema RED Raven 4K cameras and various support tools you will produce, shoot and edit short projects or "challenges" including your final short 3–5min film. This will be a non­‐dialogue driven film based with a post-­produced soundtrack. No other digital formats are to be used outside of what we utilize for this class. We will also discuss various filmmaking techniques and current industry topics, including film in relation to digital cinema and current workflows. Post Production will be done using Davinci Resolve.

FTT 40411: Documentary Production | Ted Mandell

A hands-on creative course for the advanced production student interested in the production process and storytelling techniques of the documentarian. Emphasizing the cinema verite approach of filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, and Frederick Wiseman, students learn the importance of capturing life's moments, being faithful to a subject, and understanding the filmmaker's point of view. The goal is to produce a short documentary film over the course of the semester which honestly portrays its subject(s), while at the same time, challenges its audience.

FTT 40428: Girls' Media and Cultural Studies | Mary Celeste Kearney

This course introduces students to critical analyses of girls' media culture. During the first half of the semester we will focus on constructions of girls and girlhood in intellectual theory, popular discourse, and media texts (particularly U.S. film and television), paying attention to shifts in such constructions as a result of sociohistorical contexts and the rise of feminist ideologies. The second half of the semester will be devoted to exploring the media and cultural practices of female youth, examining the expansion of girls' culture beyond consumer-oriented activities, such as magazine reading and music listening, to those involving media production, such as filmmaking and blogging. In addition to problematizing girls' sex and gender identity through intersectional explorations of age and generation, and vice versa, we will pay special attention to how issues of race, class, and sexuality impinge upon the formation of girls' identities, female youth cultures, and the representation of girlhood in popular culture.

FTT 40702/41702: Audition Seminar | Lab | Siiri Scott

0–3 cr. hrs.

Preparation for acting professionally and/or the advanced study of acting, directing and performance. A course of study is developed between the student and the faculty advisor(s) at the beginning of the semester. Students who are interested in taking this course but are not FTT majors should consult the instructor. Senior Acting majors only. Offered fall only.

FTT 46000: Acting Pedagogy and Practice | Siiri Scott

1–3 cr. hrs.

This course introduces the advanced Acting student to various methods of Acting training. In addition to directed readings, the student serves as the teaching assistant for Acting: Process or Acting: Character under the supervision of the instructor. The student is expected to attend all class meetings and supervise weekly rehearsals outside of class.

FTT 46020: Theatre Pedagogy & Practice | Matt Hawkins

0–3 cr. hrs.

This course introduces the advanced theatre student to mentorship opportunities in creative work. The student serves as the teaching assistant for a creative theatre course under the supervision of the instructor. The student is expected to attend all class meetings and supervise weekly rehearsals/readings outside of class.

FTT 47601: Special Studies

1–3 cr. hrs.

This course gives students an opportunity to conduct research and is intended for advanced students. Application and permission of the individual instructor is required. Application may be obtained by emailing the department at ftt@nd.edu or by visiting the FTT departmental office at 230 DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

View Spring 2026 courses here