Cinema Studies: The Perfect Storm

“There’s hardly a life that isn’t touched by the moving image,” said Kathleen Karlyn, professor of English, who was instrumental in the creation last year of a new cinema studies major.

The major has taken off like wildfire.

Last fall, roughly 30 students had expressed an interest in majoring in cinema studies once it officially began in the winter. By spring term, there were more than 100 declared majors.

“We far exceeded our expectations, and we’ll take in as many students as we possibly can,” Karlyn said.

Classes are drawn from an eclectic range of academic departments and challenge students to critically examine the role that the moving image—film, video, television and emerging digital forms—plays in our lives.

Karlyn, who is also the major’s director, says it’s the only program of its kind between the Bay Area and Vancouver, B.C. It is unique in that it introduces a production element within the context of the intellectual depth that a liberal arts education provides.

The major’s creation comes at a time when the Oregon film industry is seeing significant growth, accounting for more than 4,000 jobs and output of more than half a billion dollars per year. And the bigger picture is the overall transformation of moving-image industries across the globe, driven by technologies racing ahead in an increasingly connected world.

This interconnectedness is a central feature of the major, which has a strong international focus. The new program includes classes on media from around the world, including Japan, China, Russia, India and Latin America.

The major is a collaborative effort among the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Journalism and Communication, the School of Architecture and Allied Arts and the UO Libraries.

“It’s been the perfect storm of people collaborating on the major,” said associate professor of English Michael Aronson, himself a key contributor to the creation of the major and the program’s associate director.

—Anne Conaway