Catalog of Courses for All School of Data Science Classes
This course exposes students to foundational knowledge in each of the four high level domain areas of data science (Value, Design, Analytics, Systems). This includes an emphasis on ethical issues surrounding the field of data science and how these issues originate and extend into society more broadly.
Covers foundations and applications of NLP with a focus on the most popular form of unstructured data ¿ text. Convert source texts into structure-preserving analytical form and then apply information theory, NLP tools, and vector-based methods to explore language models, topic models, sentiment analyses, and GenAI techniques. Focus is on unsupervised methods to explore cognitive patterns in texts, with real-world examples and demonstrations.
Introduction to core data science concepts and skills, including computing environments, visualization, modeling, and bias analysis. Think like a Data Scientist as you engage through lectures, discussions, labs, and guest talks while applying learning in a guided semester-long project. Concludes with an independent project to reinforce and extend skills.
Will expose student to fundamental coding languages in data science. Python and R will be the primary focus of the course. Popular packages such as pandas and tidyverse will be covered in depth. Additionally, project management skills such as Git and Github will be covered.
Will expose student to fundamental coding languages in data science. Python and R will be the primary focus of the course. Popular packages such as pandas and tidyverse will be covered in depth. Additionally, project management skills such as Git and Github will be covered.
This course will center on exposing students to contemporary pipelines for data analysis through a series of steadily escalating use cases. The course will begin with simple local database construction such as SQLite and evolve to cloud base systems such as AWS or Google Cloud. This progression will include topics such as data lakes and other non-SQL applications as appropriate.
The course is designed to not only teach students tools necessary to visualize data but also effective techniques for explaining data driven results with an emphasis on communicating statistical output in a manner that best represents the findings. Examples might include tailoring messages based on the audience or shaping visualizations to follow a story-line. Content on the development of interactive plots and dashboards will also be included.
Explores principles and applications of data ethics within a broader social framework that prioritizes conversations about policy, regulatory frameworks, accountability, transparency, and governance models. Will discuss who is responsible for doing responsible data science, question how our work shapes the world around us, and understand the impacts of big data on people and communities.
Covers the fundamentals of probability theory & stochastic processes. Become conversant in the tools of probability. Clearly describe & implement concepts related to random variables, properties of probability, distributions, expectations, moments, transformations, model fit, basic inference, sampling distributions, discrete & continuous time Markov chains, & Brownian motion. Illustrate most topics with both analytic & computational solutions.
Will center on exposing students to contemporary pipelines for data analysis through a series of steadily escalating use cases. The course will begin with simple local database construction such as SQLite and foundation knowledge in terms of computational environments. The content will lay the groundwork for more advanced Systems Domain courses in the major.
Designed not only to teach students tools necessary to visualize data but also effective techniques for explaining data driven results with an emphasis on communicating statistical output in a manner that best represents the findings. Lays the foundation for more advanced topics in the Data Design domain. Content on the development of interactive plots and dashboards will also be included.
Explores principles and applications of data ethics within a broader social framework. Works to lay foundational knowledge for more advanced courses in the Value domain of the major. Will discuss who is responsible for doing responsible data science, question how our work shapes the world around us, and understand the impacts of big data on people and communities.
Covers the fundamentals of probability theory & stochastic processes. Become conversant in the tools of probability. Clearly describe & implement concepts related to random variables, properties of probability, distributions, expectations, moments, transformations, model fit, basic inference, sampling distributions, discrete & continuous time Markov chains, & Brownian motion. Illustrate most topics with both analytic & computational solutions.
This course exposes students to foundational knowledge in each of the four high level domain areas of data science (Value, Design, Analytics, Systems). This includes an emphasis on ethical issues surrounding the field of data science and how these issues originate and extend into society more broadly.
This course will center on exposing students to contemporary pipelines for data analysis through a series of steadily escalating use cases. The course will begin with simple local database construction such as SQLite and evolve to cloud base systems such as AWS or Google Cloud. This progression will include topics such as data lakes and other non-SQL applications as appropriate.
The course is designed to not only teach students tools necessary to visualize data but also effective techniques for explaining data driven results with an emphasis on communicating statistical output in a manner that best represents the findings. Examples might include tailoring messages based on the audience or shaping visualizations to follow a story-line. Content on the development of interactive plots and dashboards will also be included.
Engage with and train in the use of key concepts in machine learning and math: OLS estimator for regression; logistic regression & maximum likelihood estimator; multiple linear regression; principal components analysis & multiple correspondence analysis; neural networks; logarithms; probability distributions; integrals; multivariate optimization; matrix notation, eigen-math, and matrix decomposition; infinite power series & Taylor series.
Explore mathematical foundations of inferential and prediction frameworks, with emphasis on computation, used to learn from data. Frequentist, Bayesian, and Likelihood viewpoints are all considered. Topics: principles of estimation, optimality, bias, variance, consistency, sampling distributions, estimating equations, information, bootstrap methods, ROC curves, shrinkage, large sample theory, prediction optimality versus estimation optimality.
Exposes students to foundational knowledge in the area of analytics, especially as it relates to machine learning. The focus is on methods needed to prepare data for machine learning models, how to evaluate the output of ML models and engineering features.
Moves deeper into current best practices around data engineering in industry. Topics will review basic data collection, ingestion, processing, and storage, moving beyond to data governance, security, pipeline orchestration, monitoring and maintenance, optimization, and documentation. Relies heavily on DevOps principles of automation, continuous improvement, and an understanding of the entire software/data lifecycle.
Engage with and train in the use of key concepts in machine learning and math: OLS estimator for regression; logistic regression & maximum likelihood estimator; multiple linear regression; principal components analysis & multiple correspondence analysis; neural networks; logarithms; probability distributions; integrals; multivariate optimization; matrix notation, eigen-math, and matrix decomposition; infinite power series & Taylor series.
Explore mathematical foundations of inferential and prediction frameworks, with emphasis on computation, used to learn from data. Frequentist, Bayesian, and Likelihood viewpoints are all considered. Topics: principles of estimation, optimality, bias, variance, consistency, sampling distributions, estimating equations, information, bootstrap methods, ROC curves, shrinkage, large sample theory, prediction optimality versus estimation optimality.
The data science project course will allow students to take the knowledge gained in each of the four required courses and apply them to a data driven problem. Students will work in groups and can either choose a project provided by SDS faculty or can propose a project for approval. Upon completion of the course students will be required to present their results and publish project content to an open forum.
Principles of interactivity in application and dashboard development using R, Python, and JavaScript programming languages. Design visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces, develop interactive applications for data visualization, and build dynamic dashboards for effective data communication with end-users. Covers theoretical concepts and hands-on implementation to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full design process.
Critique models and adapt them to a variety of data sets. Gain a deeper understanding of core ML concepts. Build towards neural networks (latent index models, more complex linear models with non-linear transformations of the data). Compare new methods to kNN, clustering, linear models from ML1 to discuss performance differences as complex and predictive power increases. How mathematical concepts are present in the models presented.
Principles of interactivity in application and dashboard development using R, Python, and JavaScript programming languages. Design visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces, develop interactive applications for data visualization, and build dynamic dashboards for effective data communication with end-users. Covers theoretical concepts and hands-on implementation to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full design process.
Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a subfield of machine learning that provides transparency for complex models to connect the technical meaning to social interpretation. Explore interpretability, transparency, and black-box machine learning methods. Covers definitions, decision support, trust, and ethical considerations, and the latest advances in creating reliable and transparent AI models.
Understand Deep Learning covering neural networks, activation functions, and optimization algorithms. Gain experience with TensorFlow and PyTorch, mastering key techniques such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Explore transfer learning, reinforcement learning, and natural language processing (NLP), along with industry applications and ethical considerations.
Comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted aspects of data creation, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between design and data. Students will gain insight into the intentional and unintentional mechanisms that contribute to data creation, including human input, technological processes, environmental factors, and systemic influences.
This course provides selected special topics in data science.
Reading and research under the direction of a faculty member. Students must obtain approval from a faculty advisor to approve and direct the independent study. Final approval by the Director of Undergraduate Programs is also required.
Covers foundations and applications of NLP with a focus on the most popular form of unstructured data - text. Convert source texts into structure-preserving analytical form and then apply information theory, NLP tools, and vector-based methods to explore language models, topic models, sentiment analyses, and GenAI techniques. Focus is on unsupervised methods to explore cognitive patterns in texts, with real-world examples and demonstrations.
Train your own LLM for a custom task. Learn about the LLM lifecycle from architecture, to pre-training, to supervised finetuning, to deployment, to model editing/updating, including discussing LLM limitations. End up with your own trained LLM, a HuggingFace model card you can show off in technical interviews, and a plan for how to stay up to date with this fast-moving field.
Provides healthcare domain knowledge, healthcare data understanding, and data science methodologies to solve problems. Understand data types, models, and sources, including electronic health record data; health outcomes, quality, risk, and safety data; and unstructured data, such as clinical text data; biomedical sensor data; and biomedical image data. Querying with SQL, data visualization with Tableau, and analysis and prediction with Python.
Reinforcement Learning is a dynamic area in machine learning that allows an agent to learn by interacting with its environment. This enables learning when the ground truth is unavailable or outdated (think predicting Netflix usage before and during a pandemic). This course will introduce topics including k-armed bandits, Markov Decision Processes, value functions, Policy Gradients, Q-Learning, and deep Q-Learning.
This course looks into the past, present, and future of technologies that impact labor, with an eye to empowering students with knowledge about the social, economic, and political dimensions of the tools they use both inside and outside of work. The course covers labor history, whistleblowers, and hidden histories of common technologies that reorient common assumptions about what technologies can do, and what they have done in the past.
Aims to facilitate understanding and discussions on the impact of data and digital technologies on culture and propose solutions to the challenges affecting established cultural practices and concepts. Gain insights into analytical skills in the context of cultural data, enhancing ability to contribute meaningfully to arts management. Broadens perspectives and encourages the responsible use of data in the cultural domain.
Provides a foundation in discrete mathematics, data structures, algorithmic design and implementation, computational complexity, parallel computing, and data integrity and consistency. Case studies and exercises will be drawn from real-world examples (e.g., bioinformatics, public health, marketing, and security).
Principles of interactivity in application and dashboard development using R, Python, and JavaScript programming languages. Design visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces, develop interactive applications for data visualization, and build dynamic dashboards for effective data communication with end-users. Covers theoretical concepts and hands-on implementation to provide a comprehensive understanding of the full design process at the graduate level.
Provides an in-depth exploration of probabilistic and statistical methods used to understand, quantify, and manage uncertainty. Learn foundational concepts in probability and statistics, simulation techniques, and modern approaches to parameter estimation, decision theory, and hypothesis testing. Topics include parametric and nonparametric methods, Bayesian and frequentist paradigms, and applications of uncertainty in real-world problems.
This course will equip students with some of the most commonly used deep learning architectures. We will explore feed-forward networks, convolutional neural networks, UNETs, encoders-decoders, generative adversarial networks and transformers. We will also analyze tools of explainable AI. Focused on environmental applications, students will apply these techniques to real-world data, solving problems in prediction, pattern recognition, and data-driven insights. Solid background in probability, statistics, and in coding (preferably Python) is recommended for enrollment in this course.
An introduction to essential programming concepts, structures, and techniques. Students will gain confidence in not only reading code, but learning what it means to write good quality code. Additionally, essential and complementary topics are taught, such as testing and debugging, exception handling, and an introduction to visualization. This course is project based, consisting of a semester project and final project presentations.
Trends in hardware and software for Big Data Systems and applications. Cover principles driving data infrastructures, which enabled the training of AI models on datasets (speech, sounds, images, video, languages) and may extend to structured data (text, images, time series). AI and machine learning practitioners build and deploy data science projects on Amazon Web Services unifying data science, data engineering, and application development.
Code an end-to-end data science project with core software engineering and automation to quickly integrate into a corporate environment. Use version control to focus on solutions, leverage automation at your command line and in the cloud, deliver solid code by incorporating testing, lower extension and maintenance time with OOP and Design Patterns, ensuring your code's path to production to deliver a complete package to the enterprise.
An intensive overview of cloud infrastructure and their role in data science. Topics will include storage as a service, ephemeral computing resources, auto-scaling, and event-driven workloads. Special attention will be paid to cloud-native design patterns, which are built assuming the unique functionality of cloud computing resources.
This course provides selected special topics in data science to graduate and undergraduate students.
Covers the practice of data science, including communication, exploratory data analysis, and visualization. Also covered are the selection of algorithms to suit the problem to be solved, user needs, and data. Case studies will explore the impact of data science across different domains.
This course examines the ethical issues arising around big data and provides frameworks, context, concepts, and theories to help students think through and deal with the issues as they encounter them in their professional lives.
This course is designed for capstone project teams to meet in groups, with advisors, and with clients to advance work on their projects.
This course is designed for capstone project teams to meet in groups, with advisors, and with clients to advance work on their projects.
Designed for capstone project teams to meet in groups with advisors and clients to advance work on their projects. Capstone course is for MSDS students.
Comprehensive introduction to predictive modeling, a cornerstone of data science and machine learning. Learn the fundamental concepts, techniques, and tools used to build models while emphasizing both theoretical understanding and practical applications. The topics include we will cover are an in-depth analysis of linear models and different variants, their extension to generalized linear models, and an introduction to nonparametric regression.
This course covers fundamentals of data mining and machine learning within a common statistical framework. Topics include regression, classification, clustering, resampling, regularization, tree-based methods, ensembles, boosting, and Support Vector Machines. Coursework is conducted in the R programming language.
Bayesian inferential methods provide a foundation for machine learning under conditions of uncertainty. Bayesian machine learning techniques can help us to more effectively address the limits to our understanding of world problems. This class covers the major related techniques, including Bayesian inference, conjugate prior probabilities, naive Bayes classifiers, expectation maximization, Markov chain monte carlo, and variational inference. A course covering statistical techniques such as regression.
A graduate-level course on deep learning fundamentals and applications with emphasis on their broad applicability to problems across a range of disciplines. Topics include regularization, optimization, convolutional networks, sequence modeling, generative learning, instance-based learning, and deep reinforcement learning. Students will complete several substantive programming assignments. A course covering statistical techniques such as regression.
Evolution of language models, from encoding words to simple vectors to training LLMs. Train and build LLM, understand concepts like self- and cross-attention in LLMs and their applications, review research on Tokenizers, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), Prompt Engineering, Fine-tuning LLMs using Low-Rank Adapters (LoRA), Quantization in LLMs, QLoRA, In-context Learning (ICL) and Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning. Using Python libraries.
Introduces fundamental concepts of computation, data structures, algorithms, & databases, focusing on their role in data science. Covers both theoretical studies & hands-on learning activities. Includes basic data structures, advanced data structures, searching, sorting, greedy algorithms, linear programming, & basics of databases. Will develop computational thinking skills and learn a variety of ways to represent & analyze real-world data.
Many problems in data science essentially boil down to some mathematical relationships that are to be solved numerically. But have you ever wondered how computers could do math? This graduate-level data science course aims to cover fundamental topics of scientific computing, specifically selected and curated for data scientists, including numerical errors, root finding algorithms, numerical linear algebra, and numerical optimization.
Covers the fundamentals of probability and stochastic processes. Students will become conversant in the tools of probability, clearly describing and implementing concepts related to random variables, properties of probability, distributions, expectations, moments, transformations, model fit, sampling distributions, discrete and continuous time Markov chains, and Brownian motion.
Explores the mathematical foundations of inferential and prediction frameworks commonly used to learn from data. Frequentist, Bayesian, Likelihood viewpoints are considered. Topics include: principles of estimation, optimality, bias, variance, consistency, sampling distributions, estimating equations, information, Bootstrap methods, ROC curves, shrinkage, and some large-sample theory, prediction optimality versus estimation optimality.
Introduction to regression modeling. Topics will be discussed first in the context of linear regression, and then revisited in the context of logistic regression, ordinal regression, proportional hazards regression, and random forests. Students will be required to fit the models (both MLE and Bayesian) and use the strategies discussed in class.
Introduces physics-aware deep learning (PADL), an emerging approach that embeds physical laws into neural networks for accurate, efficient modeling. Topics include differential equations, physics-informed neural networks, neural operators, and PyTorch implementation. Students gain both theoretical foundations and practical skills to apply PADL across disciplines.
Fundamentals of data mining and machine learning within a common statistical framework. Topics include boosting, ensembles, Support Vector Machines, model-based clustering, forecasting, neural networks, recommender systems, market basket analysis, and network centrality.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of data science.
Covers data pipeline: techniques to collect data, organize, query & apply the data, and generate products that describe the insights. Topics include Python environments, containers using Docker, data wrangling with pandas, data acquisition via flat files, APIs, JSON formats, and webscraping, relational, document, and graph databases, exploratory data analysis including static & interactive data visualization, dashboards, and cloud computing.
Combines topics in data ethics, critical data studies, public policy, governance, and regulation. Address challenges by topic (Health, Education, Culture & Entertainment, Security & Defense, Cities, Environment, Labor). Research how data-centric systems are deployed within socioeconomic ecosystems and shape the world. Interrogate connections between data science, governments, industry, civil society organizations, and communities.
Specialized or advanced topics not in DS current course offerings. Requires (a) approval of the program director and (b) an SDS faculty member who will serve as instructor. Propose a syllabus which includes a week-by-week accounting of the topics, materials (papers and textbooks), and assessments. Reach out to the program director for more details.
Graduate-level independent study conducted under the supervision of a specific instructor(s)
The DH Certificate Practicum provides principles for working with humanities materials as data, while maintaining a commitment to humanistic inquiry. Students will learn to integrate digital humanities methods into coursework and research required in their home departments. This course provides students with a broad understanding of basic technologies and approaches used by digital humanists and introduces data standards and data modeling.
Learning tools and concepts for computing on big data. Learn how to use Spark for large-scale analytics and machine learning. Spark is an open-source, general-purpose computing framework that is scalable and blazingly fast. Fundamental data types and concepts will be covered (e.g., resilient distributed datasets, DataFrames) along with Tools for data processing, storage, and retrieval, including Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Covers advanced theoretical concepts for deep neural networks. Topics include convolutional neural networks and their design principles, encoder-decoder architectures, recurrent neural networks, transformers, bounding box detection, image segmentation, generative adversarial networks, diffusion models, etc. Using open-source Python libraries such as NumPy, TensorFlow, and Keras, to understand how theoretical concepts are implemented.
Current state and future trends in Machine Learning Systems are covered. Topics include hardware systems, software systems, and Machine Learning optimized for metrics beyond predictive accuracy.
Advanced topics within Machine Learning.
This graduate-level course explores the principles, methodologies, and applications of human-centered design (HCD). Students will learn how to create solutions that meet real human needs. The course combines theoretical foundations with practical application through hands-on projects where students will define problems, prototype solutions, and test with users to develop impactful, user-centered products and services.
Introduces ways that data and information have historically been constructed in different realms--from medicine to public health to computing--to shed light on the power relationships embedded in some of our present-day and near-future tools, systems, and economic relationships. Will use a historical lens, as well as methods from STS, to give an introduction to how data and power interact in people's lives.
Transition into principal investigators and generators of data science-based knowledge. Develop practical skills necessary to conduct high quality data science research, advance development into producers and critical consumers of research, and further development into professional data scientists broadly defined. Research based career topics covered: time management, research products, types of research positions, and grant writing.
Networks provide a unifying framework to study the structure hidden within complex data. This graduate-level course focuses on the fundamental concepts and statistics as well as recent advancements and applications of network science. Topics include: graph theory, structural paradoxes, measures and algorithms for quantifying importance, community detection, network inference, recommendation systems, and link prediction.
Engages students in identification of a research question, a review of the literature and the application of an existing data science tool or technique (algorithm) to that problem. This is a mentored experience and will allow the student to demonstrate their capacity for research and begin to develop a relationship with a faculty mentor in Data Science. Course requires instructor permission.
PhD level Dissertation Research.
This course exposes students to foundational knowledge in each of the four high level domain areas of data science (Value, Design, Analytics, Systems). This includes an emphasis on ethical issues surrounding the field of data science and how these issues originate and extend into society more broadly.
Covers foundations and applications of NLP with a focus on the most popular form of unstructured data ¿ text. Convert source texts into structure-preserving analytical form and then apply information theory, NLP tools, and vector-based methods to explore language models, topic models, sentiment analyses, and GenAI techniques. Focus is on unsupervised methods to explore cognitive patterns in texts, with real-world examples and demonstrations.
This course provides selected special topics in data science to graduate and undergraduate students.
Covers the practice of data science, including communication, exploratory data analysis, and visualization. Also covered are the selection of algorithms to suit the problem to be solved, user needs, and data. Case studies will explore the impact of data science across different domains.
This course examines the ethical issues arising around big data and provides frameworks, context, concepts, and theories to help students think through and deal with the issues as they encounter them in their professional lives.
This course covers the practice of data science practice, including communication, exploratory data analysis, and visualization. Also covered are the selection of algorithms to suit the problem to be solved, user needs, and data. Students will use their capstone projects to explore the impact of data science on that domain.
This course is designed for capstone project teams to meet in groups, with advisors, and with clients to advance work on their projects.
This course examines the ethical issues arising around big data and provides frameworks, context, concepts, and theories to help students think through and deal with the issues as they encounter them in their professional lives.
This course is designed for capstone project teams to meet in groups, with advisors, and with clients to advance work on their projects.
Graduate Assistantship assessment for graduate students.
Course content varies by section and is selected to fill timely, special interests and needs of students. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of data science.
Graduate-level independent study conducted under the supervision of a specific instructor(s)
This introductory social science course develops a cultural understanding of global commerce and travel. We begin with the anthropological notion of cultures and languages as keys to human diversity. We then look at some of the ways different cultures are connected today through international business, including the business of travel.
The course analyzes our global cultural condition from a dual historical perspective and follows a development stretching over the last 60 years, beginning with the period just after WW II and continuing to the present day. Of central concern will be the varieties of cultural expression across regions of the world and their relation to a rapidly changing social history, drawing upon events that occur during the semester.
This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Global Development Studies.
Theoretical approaches to global development from anthropology, economics, environmental sciences, history, politics, and sociology, and analysis of selected case studies. Prerequisite: the student must be a GDS major in order to enroll. Instructor permission.
Theoretical approaches to global development from anthropology, economics, environmental sciences, history, politics, and sociology, and analysis of selected case studies. This is the second course in a two-semester sequence. Prerequisite: GDS 3010 AND the student must be a GDS major in order to enroll. Instructor Permission.
Social entrepreneurship is an approach to creating system-level change through the application of entrepreneurial thinking to social ventures, non-profit organizations, government institutions, and NGOs to create economic, environmental, and social value for multiple stakeholders. Students will survey a range of social-entrepreneurial approaches from the non-profit to the for-profit.
Examines the protocols of planning for and conducting development projects and the research associated with them both locally and internationally. Special attention to the ethical obligations inherent in development work and the dynamics of collaborating with local communities. Prerequisite: Instructor permission AND the student must be a GDS major in order to enroll.
Students are required to enroll in both semesters of this year-long course. The spring semester of this course on engaged learning in global/local development is designed to support students who are already working with non-university colleagues. We continue reading in the theory and practice of community engagement, trouble shoot community-based activities, and begin evaluating student learning and our impacts on those with whom we are working.
Grounded in the field of environmental history, this course examines the ways in which enviornmental changes and perceptions of nature have interacted with socio-economic structures and processes associated with the expansion of Europe since the 15th century.
Buddhism takes an ethical and practical view of how individuals and societies can develop toward greater equity, sustainability, and satisfaction. This course will investigate, from a Buddhist perspective and practicing Vipassana meditation, the state of development in the developed and developing world, in Buddhist and Western societies, with emphasis on the role of the individual, personal choice, and personal growth.
This course will survey the history of scientific and technical interventions in development, as well as examine the factors that shape the outcomes of contemporary practices. We will look at science and technology in two broad areas in which UVA has considerable expertise: the built environment and public health.
Course offers a flexible structure for students studying abroad to learn to be intentional, self-reflective, and curious in how they transact and engage across cultures. It consists of independent assignments organized around methods used by social scientists to understand different cultures and worldviews. It is intended as a supplement to education abroad and can be adapted to different timeframes and locations. Second of 3-course sequence.
This course explores the legacy of the "hidden wounds" left upon the landscape by plantation slavery along with the visionary work of ecofeminist scholars and activists daring to imagine an alternative future. Readings, guest lectures, and field trips illumine the ways in which gender, race, and power are encoded in historical, cultural, and physical landscapes associated with planting/extraction regimes such as tobacco, mining, sugar, and corn.
This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Global Development Studies.
This seminar takes up questions of responsibility and fairness posed by climate change as ways into a search for shared ground across moral traditions. It investigates the ethical dimensions of climate change as a way to consider broad frameworks for developing responsibilities across national, cultural, and religious borders.
This seminar offers an examination of the state, civil society, and citizens, focusing on the ways in which these actors and institutions interact to shape economic, human, and political development. The course introduces theories of the state, civil society, and citizenship, and examines the linkages between these spheres, applying these theories to substantive issues and policy arenas.
This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Global Development Studies.
This is the first semester internship at either UVA Art Museum or Kluge Ruhe. Students will work approximately 100 hours per semester in the museum, and will participate in three training sessions and three academic seminars. Instructor Permission, by application; deadline May 1. Please see information at www.virginia.edu/art/arthistory/courses and www.artsandsciences.virginia.edu/globaldevelopment
This is the second semester internship at either UVA Art Museum or Kluge Ruhe. Students will work approximately 100 hours per semester in the museum, and will participate in three training sessions and three academic seminars. ARTH/GDS 4951 and instructor permission, by application; deadline May 1. Please see information at www.virginia.edu/art/arthistory/courses and www.artsandsciences.virginia.edu/globaldevelopment
Students learn about the history, demographics, current trends in student mobility, and the principles and practices in effective education abroad advising and administration. Students gain first-hand exposure to the operations of an education abroad office and acquire knowledge and develop skills needed to enter the field of education abroad advising and administration. Prerequisite: Completed a study abroad program, Instructor Permission.
Students continue their examination of student mobility and principles and practices in effective education abroad advising and administration. Students gain first-hand exposure to the operations of an education abroad office and acquire knowledge and develop skills needed to enter the field of education abroad advising and administration. Prerequisite: Completion of GSGS 4961; Instructor permission.
In this seminar, GDS majors complete their GDS research paper. Prerequisite: Instructor permission AND the student must be a GDS major in order to enroll.
Independent Study. Prerequisites: Instructor permission.
Special Topics in Media Studies.
This course is a survey introduction to the complex and increasingly pervasive impact of mass media in the U.S. and around the world. It provides a foundation for helping you to understand how mass media -- as a business, as well as a set of texts -- operates. The course also explores contextual issues -- how media texts and businesses are received by audiences and by regulatory bodies.
The history, theory, practice and understanding of digital media. Provides a foundation for interrogating the relation of digital media to contemporary culture and understanding the function, design, and use of computers.
Explores the relationships among various forms of mass communication, social institutions and other dimensions of social life from a sociological perspective.
This course explores the world of cinema through storytelling, technique, and cultural influence. It covers key concepts in film analysis, including cinematography, editing, sound, and lighting, helping students understand how filmmakers craft powerful narratives. Students exploring how films reflect societal values and address complex issues. The course traces the history of cinema and offers hands-on experiences in writing and production.
In this class, students will take on active roles as "associate producers" in the production of "American Forum," a weekly, one-hour public affairs interview & conversation program produced and recorded at the U.Va. Miller Center. Students will assist in technical production, development of show content, marketing, & creating online components. Students will research potential guests, read books & produce memos on the scholarship of guests.
Democracy is in trouble today. Why? This course explores the growing threats to democracy in the United States and globally. Topics include: the impact of xenophobia, racism and radical nationalism on democracy; the rise of far-right media; the appeal of ethno-nationalism; the growth of White Power militias; legal barriers against voting, immigration and citizenship; as well as the impact of social media and cyber-based disinformation.
Students will learn the practical components of podcast production including: audio recording and editing, sound mixing, script writing, interview techniques, and the final production of a podcast. In addition, students will critically analyze the components of radio/podcast features. The course includes a lecture component and lab time where the instructor will consult with students about their projects.
This course will provide practice-based learning opportunities for students in various forms of media, including video, podcasting, film, etc.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
Explores the concepts of community, nationalism, the public sphere, and social action in the context of the Internet and social media. Begins with a cultural history of the Internet and virtual community and then explores several ethnographic case studies of communities and social movements from around the world. Concludes with a consideration of the Internet as a political economic system. Students blog and conduct collaborative research.
This course will cover all manner of media as it relates to sports journalism. Students will analyze published work across various mediums, learn the tools for reporting and writing different types of coverage, including features, profiles, long-form, game stories and more. Students will write articles, interview subjects, analyze sports journalism, participate in peer reviews and hear from some of the most prominent figures in sports journalism.
Introductory course in news writing, emphasizing editorials, features, and reporting.
An introduction to the art and craft of screenwriting through the writing and discussion of short scripts. Will involve study of screenplays and films, and focus on the basic elements of screenwriting, including story structure, creation of character, and formatting. Prerequisite: Media studies major or instructor permission.
Which mediated performances of Blackness do we find acceptable, and which do we scorn? How have Black Americans worked to assert their value in a culture marked by respectability politics? We will examine how media has worked to inform "respectable," exceptional Black self-presentation versus the deficient. Topics include: Donald Glover, the NAACP, Serena Williams, situation comedy, Tyler Perry, Bill Cosby, Sesame Street, horror, Lena Waithe.
A course in visual thinking; introduces film criticism, concentrating on classic and current American and non-American films.
Writing about film or television for the media provides a platform to both engender and enter into a cultural and aesthetic dialog by way of shared experience. This course explores what's required for thoughtful, informed and engaged non-academic film criticism, including the obligation to understand the historical and contemporary landscapes of film, to write well and develop an individual voice, and to entertain and connect with a readership.
This course introduces students at the beginning of the major to theoretical and critical literature in the field. Topics range from the psychological and sociological experience of media, interpretation and analysis of media forms and aesthetics, theories of audience and reception, anthropological approaches to media as a cultural force, and contemporary theories of media from humanities and social sciences perspectives. The goal of the course is to provide a foundation for thinking critically about media and to give them a sense of media studies as a critical and theoretical field. Restricted to Media Studies majors.
This is a hands-on introduction to global media history. The course situates technologies, industries, texts and programs in the context of social, cultural, and political changes. Students will acquire basic competencies in historical research and writing: developing research questions, evaluating secondary sources, selecting archives, querying databases, managing notes, citing sources, sharing resources, and communicating findings as a team.
In this course, we will discuss one of the most powerful social, cultural, economic and political institutions of our day: intellectual property (IP). How did we arrive at the notion that creative works and ideas can be owned, bought and sold like tangible commodities? What impact does this concept have on the way we view the world? How does it help us achieve our social goals, and how does it present obstacles to reaching those goals?
The course uses theories of social construction to examine the relationship between news and reality. With this as our framework, we apply various critical perspectives to examine the way news "reality" is constructed, from the discursive and semiotic frameworks used to present current events as "stories," to how journalists make decisions about what is news, to the factors that structure news form and content.
This course is designed to introduce students to critical analyses of media texts, media industries, and media audiences that help explain the social, political, economic, and cultural locations of Latinas/os in America.
This course examines U.S. broadcasting in historical perspective, not only as an industry, but as a vital component of American culture and everyday life. We will examine the technological, social, political, industrial and cultural forces influencing the development of broadcast media and we will link these forces to the programs created and the audiences served. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 and restricted to Media Studies Majors and Minors
This course uses audio, video, and text to explore the basics of media law: copyright; privacy; libel and defamation; and free speech. Students will be able to describe the tension between efforts to sustain an informed public and protect rights of expression; identify legal agents in the global system; identify powers and responsibilities of agents; grasp the basics of the 1st Amendment; and prepare for deeper analysis of these areas of law.
Film production between Asian and Euro-American companies is rapidly on the rise. The fundamental objective of the course is to cultivate a rigorous theoretical understanding of the media industries within a global Asian network. We will ask: What are the cultural, political and economic implications of transnational co-productions both for global and domestic film markets?
Media representations of food across time and place offer a lens through which we can understand the cultural politics of food production, preparation, consumption and commercialization. Studying a range of food media genres, this course explores media storytelling around food, along with the racial, ethnic, gendered, class, and trans/national complexities that characterize our food narratives. A word of advice-do not to come to our class hungry!
Black horror is a primer on the quest for social justice. What can such a boundary-pushing genre teach us about paths to solidarity and democracy? What can we learn about disrupting racism, misogyny, and anti-Blackness? If horror is radical transgression, then we have much to learn from movies such as Candyman, The First Purge, Get Out, Eve¿s Bayou, Blacula, Attack the Block, Demon Knight, Tales from the Hood, Sugar Hill, and Ganja & Hess.
The course explores Breaking Bad through study of the show's narrative, characters, and formal design. Topics examined include: socio-economic anxieties and spiritual longings in contemporary America; the political and religious implications of addiction to speed (technological and pharmacutical); the show as revisionary Puritan narrative and revisionary Western; the problem of being bugged; the desire to get away with it; the poetry of W.W.
This course will use cases from around the world to examine the relationship between media and cybersecurity. The course will analyze criminal hacks of media production companies, how cybercrimes are represented in popular media, and how media use exposes users to risk of cybercrimes.
Examines the role of mass media in the political process including such topics as print and broadcast news, media and election campaigns, political advertising, and media effects on public opinion and political participation.
In this seminar, we will investigate Star Wars as an ongoing media franchise. Students will explore media franchises as cultural, social, and economic phenomena that cut across multiple media (from films to theme parks to toys), interrogating them from media history, industrial analysis, textual analysis, and audience analysis approaches. Students will create written papers and video essays that allow them to explore media franchising scholarship and final projects on topics of their interest.
Examines German art cinema from the 1960s-1980s, focusing on modernist aesthetics and filmic responses to major historical events in post-war Germany. Films by Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Kluge, Sander, von Trotta, and others.
This course examines current best practices in digital media and publishing, and calls on students to write, edit, and curate meaningful content using industry recognized tools, such as Wordpress and Tumblr, as well as experiment with new and experimental platforms. Students will learn how to develop an online content strategy by analyzing the target audience, determining the message to be conveyed, and presenting user-friendly content.
This course provides a historical and critical perspective on Latin American Cinema (LAC), with an emphasis on LAC's relationship to Third Cinema, revolutionary cinema, and contemporary progressive filmic cinematic forms and traditions.
The course examines the different ways documentary filmmakers have attempted to represent reality. The course surveys the development of different 'modes' of documentary and the different ways these modes claim representational authority. Throughout, we will be conscious of the particular truth claims of documentary and the ethical issues involved in filming real people.
Basic Multimedia Reporting teaches the hands on skills required for professional level news reporting, news production and short documentaries. Students may choose to specialize in Written Journalism, TV Journalism or Production. However, all students learn proficiency in research, news writing, ethics, camera use, video editing, and where requested, broadcast presentation skills.
The 1950s has been written about variously as the age of innocence, the height of the Cold War, a decade of great economic prosperity, the decade in which television first became a mass phenomenon, and the decade of the baby boomers which produced youth culture in its first mass incarnations. How was the experience of gender and race distinctive in this decade?
Students (maxium of two) take on active roles as credited "senior associate producers" (SAPs) in production of "American Forum," a weekly, one-hour public affairs interview & conversation program produced and recorded at the U.Va. Miller Center. SAPs coordinate and work with 7-member teams of "associate" level students taking MDST 2280 in technical production, development of show content, marketing & creating online components.
In this course, we will explore the obstacles confronting the news industry -- disinformation, declining trust in institutions, eroding business models, inequitable practices -- but we won't dwell on what's gone wrong. Instead, we'll focus on what can be done about it. We'll define the role of journalism in society, we'll examine emerging models of solutions-based journalism, and we'll envision new models for community-minded news-sharing.
Examines the dynamic global transformations in print, broadcast, and digital media in an international and comparative context. Considers historical, institutional, and textual factors that impact media in local and global contexts. Examines the critical role of media in the long history of globalization and focuses on a number of cultural, technological, and economic issues addressed by media and globalization at the turn of the 21st century.
The focus of this class will be on viewings and analyses of films featuring images of teens produced between 1930 and the present, focusing on the following questions: what is adolescence (and how has it been defined in American film)? What is the range of experience that characterizes American adolescence across gender, race, and class lines? How does it make sense to think about the social influence of films on individuals and society?
This course considers how animation and cartoons have historically been translated into the media of cinema and television. Focal points will be: Disney in traditional cinema animation, Hanna-Barbera in the broadcast television cartoon, Nickelodeon in cable television cartoons, and Pixar in digital cinema animation. Students will also practice creative and technical processes involved in making animation, individually and collectively.
This is a cinema history class that will proceed roughly chronologically from the dawn of the sound era to the early 1970s. This course will look at and listen to the ways that sound technologies shaped global filmmaking in this period, while also introducing students to various theoretical and critical perspectives on the relationship between the visual and the aural.
Video gaming is the fastest growing form of media: Americans spend twice as much on gaming as on recorded music and it is estimated that young men average over 670 hours a year playing video games. Yet we know relatively little about the broader social and political impact of this new medium. This class will sample the existing literature and explore ways of understanding the political implications (broadly defined) of gaming.
This course studies nontheatrical films such as public relations films, management films, educational films, industrial films, and government-sponsored films. We will treat film as visual evidence to explore social, cultural, political, and industrial information across historical periods. Besides learning historiographical method to study cinema, students will examine representations of sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class, and religion.
In this course we consider the depiction of the U.S.-Mexico border from the perspective of popular and mass media cultures. We examine the border as a site of cultural exchanges, resistance and critical negotiation; interchanges that impact the construction of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender from both sides of the border.
The history of popular music in the U.S. is intimately intertwined with broadcasting. The relationship between "radio and records" has been one of mutual dependence and abiding antagonism. Students will learn how this relationship developed historically, and will consider its continuing evolution. Our narrative will include the effects of legal decisions and technological innovations on music-making; on broadcasting; and on music consumption.
A study of media and culture through music. Our focus is on tracing the cultural origins of popular genres of music, mostly across the 20th century history of the United States. We will listen to the sounds of classical, jazz, country, pop, rock, hip hop, and electronic music. Central themes include instrument, identity, lyric, style, industry, and distribution media. Students will also practice making their own music.
This course will explore the TV show Friday Night Lights through study of its narrative, characters, themes, filming style and the media's response. Through episodic examinations, students will explore topics such as: team versus individual, the role of a coach, race and gender relations, socioeconomic and class structures identified through sport, the significance of high school football, and the media's role/influence in telling those stories.
This course examines media coverage of American wars from World War I to the present. Study of the evolution in media coverage of war provides an ideal vantage point for understanding the changing nature of warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries, war's impact on American society, and the ways in which political elites have attempted to mobilize public support for foreign conflicts. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
This course examines the ways a changing media system is altering the dynamics of public discourse and democratic politics in the United States. Throughout the course we will critically analyze the ways in which scholars from a wide range of disciplines have studied the connection between media and politics, the methods they have employed, and the validity of their findings and approaches in the new media environment in which we now live. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
This course examines the constitutional, legal and regulatory foundations common to print, broadcast media and the Internet. An overview of topics such as libel, invasion of privacy, obscenity and copyright helps students understand forces that shape news and information they receive and prepares them to use media more effectively as citizens, voters and entrepreneurs in an increasingly complex multimedia world.
This class explores HBO's The Wire as an examination of race, class, and economic change in urban America. We examine the series as a creative work which balances a commitment to realism with the demands of television drama. Students will view episodes of The Wire and read material on urban America, the changing contours of television, and the series itself. Requisites: Permission of Instructor
The history of American cinema is inextricably and controversially tied to the racial politics of the U.S. This course will explore how images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are reflected on screen and the ways that minorities in the entertainment industry have responded to often limiting representations. Prerequisite: MDST Major
This course will explore the complex cultural dynamics of LGBTQ media visibility, along with its social, political, and psychological implications for LGBTQ audiences. It explores four domains: (1) the question of LGBT media visibility (2) the complex processes of inclusion, normalization, and assimilation in popular culture (3) media industries and the LGBT market (4) the relationship between digital media, LGBT audiences, and everyday life.
This course provides students a familiarity with the terrain of moral philosophy, improves students' awareness of the complex ethical issues and dilemmas in journalism and other areas of mass media, and engages students in the process of critical thinking, moral reasoning and problem solving in media communications. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
Successive Iranian leaders have struggled to navigate the fraught political-cultural space of media in the Islamic Republic, skirting the line between embracing Western communications technologies & rejecting them, between condemning social networking sites & promoting themselves on Facebook. What is the role of media in political power construction in Iran? This class will consider this question through a number of inflection points in history.
This course examines film renderings of artificial intelligence to foster critical perspectives on AI's entanglement with human experiences (e.g., of identity, work, privacy, sex, aging, memory, death). Issues raised will include: the political economics of computational culture; the ethics of algorithmic tracking systems; the religious underpinnings of AI's promise to deliver efficient transport (of information, services, goods, passengers).
This course explores humorous and comedic texts and performances across a variety of media forms in America. We will begin by understanding theories of comedy and the logic of jokes alongside histories of comedians and humorous tropes and aesthetics. Examining a variety of content, we will discover how American comedy offers a rich relationship between creative expression and sociopolitical critique across different media and contexts.
Topics have historical breadth and cover the historical development of media institutions, technology, or forms in areas of television, journalism, graphic media, film, print and publication history, digital media or other relevant areas. These courses may be repeated for credit if course content is sufficiently distinct to merit. Decision about repeated credit is at the discretion of the Director of Media Studies. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
This course will offer historical, comparative, and critical perspectives on a selected major directors and auteurs each semester. Directors might include Hitchcock, Welles, Heckerling, Ray, Speilberg, Renoir, Truffaut, etc.
This course will offer historical and critical perspectives on a selected film genre each semester. Genres might include Noir, war, romance, musicals, gangster, New Wave, etc.
This course offers historical, comparative, critical, and media industry perspectives on global media. It explores how capital, geopolitics, new technologies and forms of production and consumption impact global media flows. Topics include studies of media systems, textual traditions, media circulation, globalization, the role of media technologies in international affairs, and the role of transnationalism in national and international affairs.
This course will offer historical, comparative, and critical perspectives on issues of diversity and identity in media studies. Topics may include the relationship between media and underrepresented groups, media use in identity construction, masculinity and feminine role models in media, media power, etc. Prerequisite: MDST Major and Minors or Instructor Permission
This practice-based course will build on previous knowledge and/or experience in various forms of media, including video, podcasting, film, etc.
This hands-on course prepares students to read, evaluate, and design research in media studies. Drawing on critical, historical, administrative, and industrial traditions in the field, students will learn to assess the validity and anticipate the ethical requirements of various methods & data collection procedures. Following a theme selected by the instructor, the course culminates with each student proposing a new, original research study.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
This course entails study of films originating from and/or identified with non-US nations and cultures. Topics include: introduction to a nation's cinematic achievements (e.g., Korean cinema); in-depth study of one or more influential cinematic movements (e.g., French New Wave; Italian Neo-Realism); exploration of a particular historical period (e.g., German silent cinema). The course fulfills the non-US requirement for the Media Studies major.
Examines how television addresses women, how it represents women, and how women respond to the medium. Explores the relationship between the female audience and television by focusing on both contemporary and historical issues. Areas of particular concern include: how women have responded to television as technology; how specific genres have targeted women; how female-focused specialty channels have addressed women; and how specific programming and genres have mediated the changing status of women from the 1950s to the present. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
For the last 60 years, TV has been one of the most important cultural forms in the American mediascape. Mindful of this past, this course will explore contemporary issues in television studies as we enter the digital age. How does time-shifting technology fundamentally alter our conceptions of TV? What does Hulu mean for the television industry? What does the emergence of 'quality TV' imply imply aboutTV's rich past as ashared cultural product?
This course examines contemporary cinematic & televisual representations of terrorism. It aims to do the following: to promote critical awareness of the ways in which terrorism is depicted on screen, particularly in the post-9/11 world; to encourage exploration of the complex ways in which real acts of terror involve performance & theatrics; to address the ethics and responsibilities of film and TV in re-creating acts of terror on screen.
This course offers in-depth examination of American gangster films, tracing the genre's development from early silent film to the present. It investigates the extensive influence the genre has had on the nature of the American film industry and explores how the representation of gangster life on screen articulates crucial anxieties, frustrations, and desires circulating in American society at the time of the film's creation.
This course provides an overview of the enduring genre of the American Western in its classic and revised forms. The course will address the social and historical contexts informing the films. Students will be asked to perform both cultural and formal analysis of the cinematic texts.
This course examines a number of American detective films and how the portrait of the hard-boiled private eye dramatizes concerns about class, race, gender relations, urbanization, the rationalization of experience, the limits of self-knowledge, the blurring of boundaries between bodies and machines, and the collapse of distinction between private life and public life.
Increasingly, we use media to better understand our bodies - MRIs, fitness trackers, bluetooth hearing aids, and other media help to construct bodily health, ability, and gender. We will study a range of tech that mediate bodies, and also consider how media representations of "normal" bodies effect social life and mental health.
Disability is a pervasive, yet little studied, dimension of popular media. This class considers the stereotypes, interventions, and politics of on-screen images of disability as well as the ways in which disability affects the production and reception of media texts and technologies. Thus, we will watch a range of disability media, engage with disability cultures, and consider necessary additions to media experience (such as close captioning).
Accessibility--building digital technologies that they can be used by people with disabilities--involves specific technological, critical, and interpersonal skills. This teaches practical web development skills alongside theoretical questions about the meanings of access, disability, design and the ethics of technological innovation.
This course will explore the role that sports have played in the development of media and society, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. It will consider such issues as amateurism, labor, performance-enhancing drugs, race, gender, sexuality, body image, and the role of sports within American universities. Prerequisite: MDST 2000.
This course will examine how the US news media is organized, what gets news coverage and why, and the role the news media plays in our democracy. Issues will include the impact of the digital news revolution, the importance of who owns the media, the differences between the many types of TV news and why the students' personal consumption of news matters. Students will gain an ability to analyze the news, and whether it helps them as citizen.
This course will cover all manner of media as it relates to sports journalism. Students will analyze published work across various mediums, learn the tools for reporting and writing different types of coverage, including features, profiles, long-form, game stories and more. Students will write articles, interview subjects, analyze sports journalism, participate in peer reviews and hear from some of the most prominent figures in sports journalism.
A survey of issues in the study of new media and of new media artifacts. Objects studied may include films with digital special effects, digital animation, digital video, video games, digital art, internet art, and others. Theories of new media, media art, media change. Taught primarily via discussion with some lectures. Short papers, class participation, final project. Prerequisite: one course in Media Studies, English, Art History, or a related discipline.
Students will gain a practical and critical introduction to key technologies that are shaping research, innovation, and critical thinking across the liberal arts curriculum: specific technologies, including a programming language, that will empower them to better envision and develop technology-mediated projects in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students will reflect on the history and discourse in these areas.
This course is an introduction to the field of Game Studies, surveying theories of play and research on contemporary videogames to non-digital, analog, and "folk games." Historic tensions and debates in game studies will form the foundation for the course, then students will engage with game studies as inherently interdisciplinary, developing novel research projects on games and play as well as interrogating their own play experiences.
The growth of media industries in China sits at the intersection between commerce, technology and policy. The objective of the course is to cultivate a rigorous understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of these three areas within the context of China's global expansion. Students will also be expected to develop fresh critical perspectives on the significance of analysis of industry practice as a means to critique media texts.
This course addresses the medium of comics, including comic books, graphic novels, la bande dessinee, fumetti, and manga. Addressing comics as media, we will investigate comics form, publishing, creative movements, and adaptations into televisual media. Students will engage with primary comics sources, comic studies scholarship, and each others' creative work.
This course approaches the design and creation of "interactive stories." Over the term, students will develop prototypes of multiple interactive storytelling media (interactive fiction, games, simulations, scenarios), balancing an understanding of the scholarship on interactive narrative with individualized design goals. No experience with game design or programming is required.
This course studies the relationship between social media and Global South societies. Students in this course will analyze the various theories related to the effects and affordances of social media on ideological polarization, social influence, social capital, and social movements. Students will be required to look beyond positive/negative effects of social media, and conduct in-depth interrogations about issues that surround them.
This course explores the origins and impacts of American hip-hop as a cultural form in the last forty years, and maps the ways that a local subculture born of an urban underclass has risen to become arguably the dominant form of 21st-century global popular culture. While primarily focused on music, we will also explore how forms such as dance, visual art, film, and literature have influenced and been influenced by hip-hop style and culture.
This course examines the history of athletes as activists and the media's coverage and understanding (and at times, misunderstanding?) of those movements. How did the media cover early protests and activism from athletes? How has that coverage changed in subsequent years? How have movements paralleled larger movements (MeToo, Black Lives Matter)? We will also look at political ties to athlete activism, examining how each sphere affects the other.
Money is one of the oldest media technologies in the world, but in recent years a variety of experiments from Venmo to Bitcoin have emerged, promising to reinvent the form of money itself. This class looks at the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of money as a media technology.
Measuring "value" is an important feature of media industries and contemporary life more broadly. This class asks how value is determined, according to what value systems, through what systems of valuation. We will look at taste, metrics, reviews, awards, likes, retweets, and ratings, to try to understand how people answer the question, "What is valuable?"
This class examines computer-mediated communication forms known as "social media." What makes these technologies "social" or "media"? From algorithms to selfies, most aspects of social media have been met with both moral panics and utopian pronouncements. Students will develop a set of critical frames and analytical methods for understanding the role of social media in society.
This course will introduce Media Studies students to-- but also critique-- the theory and practice of design thinking and research in media. There will be a strong practice component. No technical skills required.
Using a mix of scholarly and popular-press readings and an examination of digital artifacts, we will analyze the creations and contributions of Black digital culture from the mid-90s to the present. Covering topics including the early Black blogosphere; the creation of niche content sites like BlackPlanet.com; the emergence of Black Twitter; the circulation of memes, and the use second-screening.
Provides an opportunity for students to get credit for field work, in the area of media studies. Students must put a proposal together for the project with a faculty sponsor, which must be approved by the add/drop deadlines. Restricted to Media Studies Majors.
An introduction to the art and craft of screenwriting through the writing and discussion of short scripts. Will involve study of screenplays and films, and focus on the basic elements of screenwriting, including story structure, creation of character, and formatting. Prerequisite: Media studies major or instructor permission.
Examines why New York City remains the center of global journalism.
This course traces the development of national news broadcasting in the United States from the 1920s to the present.
Analyzes the development of the silent film, 1895 to 1928; emphasizes the technical and thematic links between national schools of cinema art and the contributions of individual directors. Includes weekly film screenings.
Analyzes the development of film as an art and social force from World War II until the 1970s. Includes weekly film screenings. Pre-requisites: MDST 2200 or 3830, or instructor permission.
A history of narrative, documentary and experimental film, 1955-77. Developments in the aesthetics of film are examined in the context of socio-economic, political and cultural conditions specific to different historical moments. Includes weekly film screenings. Students should have completed DRAM/MDST 3830 and 3840 prior to requesting permission to enroll. Prerequisite: Instructor Permission
This course addresses the genre of the "superhero" across multiple media, looking at its roots in myth, its rise in print media and comics, its adaptation in television and film, and its current role as the driver of multi-billion-dollar transmedia franchises. This course addresses scholarly perspectives drawn from media industries research, transmedia storytelling, media representation, and other related media studies areas.
This course is reserved for Media Studies students interested in receiving credit for participation in student-led and UVA-affiliated enterprises that are media-related under the guidance of a faculty member or industry professional in the area of media studies. Students must put a proposal together for the project with a faculty sponsor, which must be approved by the add/drop deadlines. Restricted to Media Studies Majors.
Explores the protest movements of the 1960s through the lens of media coverage in the mainstream press of the day -- newspapers, general interest newsmagazines, photojournalism, television, popular culture, as well as the Movement's own underground press. Purpose is to understand a fascinating and often misunderstood moment in American history but also to investigate what that period can tell us about our current moment of protest and activism.
In this course, we will focus on media adaptation across multiple media (film, games, comics, books) from multiple critical, industrial, and creative perspectives. Students will engage with existing Media Studies scholarship on media adaptation, dive into adaptations first-hand through watching/reading/playing multiple media, and finally develop, individually and in groups, critical understandings of media adaptation through writing.
This course examines some of the most important American films and cinematic innovations of the 1990s and combines some crucial cultural, political, and historical events (e.g. third-wave feminism, discourse of race and ethnicity in the wake of the Rodney King case) with the representation of women across different cinematic genres. Attention will be paid to the rise of female filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Jane Campion, and Kathryn Bigelow.
An introduction to research methods in media studies. Intended as a foundation for thesis and project work for students in the DMP program. Covers subjects such as research design, ethics, people-based methods (ethnography, surveys, interviews) and textual analysis.
Writing of a thesis or production or a project with appropriately researched documentation, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers or project supervisor.
Can we preserve dignity and privacy in the age of Facebook? This seminar will consider the history and current applications of technologies & cultures of surveillance. How & why did we get to the point where almost all of our activities leave a trace? What sorts of laws and policies do we need to protect our sense of personal integrity? Students will conduct two brief oral presentations (accompanied by a video) & produce a 20-page research paper.
This course provides a critical perspective on the relationships of media to citizenship. It asks questions central to explaining the role of media in political and national life, including the following: What notions of national and political membership are forwarded by mainstream media? What media spaces are viable for the political agency of racial, sexual, and economic minorities and how do these spaces work?
This course examines mass media 'network television, journalism, advertising, cinema' both during the Kennedy years and after to explore the impact, ideas, ideals, and iconography of this presidency. Prerequisites: MDST 2000 or permission of instructor
This class will examine the normative basis of the public sphere and critiques of its current structure and ask: What would a more inclusive vision of political participation and communication look like? In attempting to build an answer, we will examine a number of works on communication ethics, politics and media, with an emphasis on feminist and queer scholarship.
This course will give you a critical understanding of the complex relationships between social violence, drug cartels, media, and Latin American nations. Together we will wrestle with the way Mexican, Colombian, and Brazilian drug violence has impacted and shaped new artistic forms and media practices that confront or, complexly, support the violence.
Course examines the crucial relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and mass media from 1950s through early 1970s, looking at a variety of media forms: Hollywood cinema, network television, mainstream newspapers, photojournalism, the black press, and news as primary documents that can tell us something about American race relations during this period and how the nation responded to challenges posed by a powerful social change movement. Prerequisite: Students should have completed either MDST 2000 Introduction to Media Studies or AMST 2001 Formations of American Cultural Studies.
As one of the primary cultural drivers of common sense, shared values, and political ideology, media are certainly influential storytellers. This course creates space for considering media's role in articulating and fashioning the limits and possibilities of gender identity. We will pay particular attention to representations of gender non-conformity in popular culture such as female masculinity, male femininity, and transgender subjectivity.
This course will examine the ways in which different mass media help to define our cultural ideas about gender differences and the ways in which feminist scholars have responded to these definitions by criticizing existing media images and by creating some alternatives of their own. The course will examine the notion that the mass media might influence our development as gendered individuals and consider different forms of feminist theory.
From analysis of documentary, narrative film, animation, gaming, experimental video, and social media, the class will provide students with the tools to bridge the gap between media and scientific messages about environmental issues. Students will develop critical tools to understand the aesthetic, environmental and industrial characteristics of different media practices related to some of the most significant issues facing our world.
This course is for students strongly considering careers in news reporting, or news documentary production. We will focus on the higher level techniques involved in finding, reporting, videotaping and writing long-form memorable news stories. Experience in Basic Reporting, student journalism, or reporting internship required.
This course presents approaches to understanding multiple histories of games. Focusing on a central game series, franchise, or genre, students will engage with the history of game development, the impact of game play, and community practices around games. Students will engage with archival research, conducting individual research projects on game histories.
In this class, students will take on active roles as "associate producers" in the production of "American Forum," a weekly, one-hour public affairs interview & conversation program produced and recorded at the U.Va. Miller Center. Students will assist in technical production, development of show content, marketing, & creating online components. Students will research potential guests, read books & produce memos on the scholarship of guests.
Students (maxium of two) take on active roles as credited "senior associate producers" (SAPs) in production of "American Forum," a weekly, one-hour public affairs interview & conversation program produced and recorded at the U.Va. Miller Center. SAPs coordinate and work with 7-member teams of "associate" level students taking MDST 2280 in technical production, development of show content, marketing & creating online components.
This course explores celebrity, stardom, fame, and self-branding as it is produced, circulated, and consumed for and by people of color. Paying particular attention to how race and ethnicity intersect with the phenomenon of celebrity in the media, this highly student-driven class will investigate celebrities of color through both historical and analytical lenses.
Paying particular attention to how race and ethnicity intersect with the phenomenon of celebrity in the media, this highly student-driven class will investigate celebrities of color through both historical and analytical lenses. In examining the increasingly self-aware culture associated with celebrity, we will discuss the ways in which celebrity is conceived, constructed, performed, and discussed, as well as how it shapes notions of identity.
This is a course about the role of technology and technological innovation in the production and consumption of 20th and 21st century music. We will begin with the invention of the phonograph and the birth of the recording industry and continue up through the present day.
Should computer code and hyperlinks be considered speech, protected by the First Amendment? Silent film? These are just some of the questions that new communication technologies have spurred for US speech law. We will explore how different media are treated under the First Amendment and discuss key legal issues associated with communications media, including censorship, corporate speech, and conflicts between copyright and free expression.
A capstone seminar, this course offers students a supervised opportunity to pursue original research in media studies. Related to a theme selected by the instructor, the project will entail design of a research question, extensive collection and analysis of literature and data, and completion of a 15-20 page paper that provides new, critical insight or information on the subject examined.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
This course examines a number of American detective films and how the portrait of the hard-boiled private eye dramatizes concerns about class, race, gender relations, urbanization, the rationalization of experience, the limits of self-knowledge, the blurring of boundaries between bodies and machines, and the collapse of distinction between private life and public life.
The course will draw from multiple genres and time periods to present an overview of how cinematic projections of whiteness have served to reinforce white supremacy. Equally important, students will examine films that counter the medium's terrifying consecration and preservation of white privilege, films that hold up whiteness for critical inspection.
This course turns a critical eye towards media's relationship to everyday life. It conceptualize media, such as cell phones, television, and YouTube for example, as central forces in representing, demarcating and franchising the ordinary. We will explore the construction of ordinariness in media as well as the ways in which audiences engage with media in daily life to achieve `taken for grantedness'. Prerequisite: MDST 2000
This survey course introduces students to the political economy of media. Central themes include political economy's historical development, its usefulness to the study of media & communications, & its contemporary applications in scholarly research. Students will be introduced to the power dynamics & institutional forces that impact media institutions, industries, ownership, cultural production, consumption & distribution in the US & elsewhere.
Focuses on the elements of documentary productions, including theory, ethics, and technologies. Along with writing assignments, student will produce their own short documentaries using mini DVD cameras and non-linear systems and non-linear editing systems. Prerequisite: MDST Undergraduates
An advanced level course that focuses on the elements and considerations that factor into documentary productions with emphasis on aspects dealing with the planning and execution of creating a documentary film.
Computers are universal media. Our intimacy with computers shapes how we think about our communities, histories, cultures, society, and ourselves. Learn to program these "thinking machines" as an act of philosophical inquiry and personal expression, challenging your beliefs about creativity, intelligence, randomness, and communication. Students with no previous experience are especially welcome!
This course is reserved for Media Studies students interested in receiving credit for participation in student-led and UVA-affiliated enterprises that are media-related under the guidance of a faculty member or industry professional in the area of media studies. Students must put a proposal together for the project with a faculty sponsor, which must be approved by the add/drop deadlines. Restricted to Media Studies Majors.
This course is designed to allow students to pursue independent research and study of a topic that is not contained within the course offerings of Media Studies. This course will not fulfill the capstone requirement
Students meet regularly with their DMP advisor to refine their research question and determine their proposed method(s). Students will read and critique published work in their area(s) of focus, with the goal of outlining a literature review. By end of term, students will produce a thesis proposal.
Writing of a thesis or production or a project with appropriately researched documentation, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers or project supervisor.
Students examine Succession to critically assess contemporary networks and creatures fueled by a will to power and operating amidst ¿the ruins of neoliberalism.¿ They also examine the toxic effects of this will to power by sifting patiently through the ruins of the Roy family: the relationship between parents and children; the relationship between/among siblings; their fear of abandonment; their desire for recognition; their desire for love.
This course will offer critical perspectives on selected contemporary issues related to new media. Topics may include media in industry, education, politics, culture, and socio-economics. This course is open to undergraduate and graduate students.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies. If offered, topics will be listed on the course offerings page for the particular semester.
In an era of AI-generated content, deepfakes, and algorithmic bias, documentary media plays a crucial role in interrogating the politics of truth. This seminar explores how documentary engages with truthmaking and emerging technologies. Through key studies and films, students will examine how filmmakers expose and hide infrastructures of control, while provoking ethical dilemmas.
This is a course about the role of technology and technological innovation in the production and consumption of 20th and 21st century music. We will begin with the invention of the phonograph and the birth of the recording industry and continue up through the present day.
Content analysis is a fundamental method, combining qualitative interpretation with quantitative data analysis. Content analysis enables individuals and teams to systematically transform a large corpus of media artifacts into a set of standardized observations suitable for exploratory data mining, statistical analysis, and critical inquiry. This course covers core concepts, practical applications, and ethical considerations of the method.
Feminist Media and Cultural Studies focuses on contemporary theory, criticism and research in the field, with an orientation to critical race feminisms, trans and queer studies, and disability studies within feminist literatures and research. We examine questions of technology, social networks, gaming, surveillance, online oppressions, media activism, feminist making, and the role of emotion and affect in feminist media analysis, among others.
This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Media Studies.
This graduate seminar will explore the ways that large-scale data collection, algorithmic processes, and artificial intelligence enhance or detract from the core values and practices of democracy. The course will cover the basics of data science, surveillance, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.
Media and Everyday Life turns a critical eye towards media's relationship to the everyday. We will conceptualize media as central forces in re-presenting, demarcating and franchising the ordinary. This course is designed to examine how media is produced as ordinary and universally intelligible (production), how it represents the everyday (texts), and how audiences phenomenologically engage with media in everyday life (reception and use).
An historical, critical, and practical introduction to technologies and ideas that are shaping teaching, research, publication, and collaboration across the liberal arts curriculum. Topics include hypertext, remediation, graphesis, ontology, and cultural analytics. Students study specifc cases and technologies, develop technology-mediated projects in a collaborative settings, and keep an online journal of their reflections on the material.
This survey course introduces students to the political economy of media. Central themes include political economy's historical development, its usefulness to the study of media & communications, & its contemporary applications in scholarly research. Students will be introduced to the power dynamics & institutional forces that impact media institutions, industries, ownership, cultural production, consumption & distribution in the US & elsewhere.
Computers are universal media. Our intimacy with computers shapes how we think about our communities, histories, cultures, society, and ourselves. Learn to program these "thinking machines" as an act of philosophical inquiry and personal expression, challenging your beliefs about creativity, intelligence, randomness, and communication. Students with no previous experience are especially welcome!
This is a core course that surveys key texts in Media Studies. The course takes a historical approach to the development of the field, but also surveys the various developments in the social sciences, the humanities, and film studies relevant to the interdisciplinary study of media.
In this course, students learn about the development of media technologies and infrastructures: how and why they were built, how they were shaped by regulation, and the social and political concerns driving both technological development and regulation. Students will read and assess primary and secondary literature, gaining an understanding of historiographical methods and employing those methods to produce original historical research.
This class teaches students the logics, ethics, and techniques of qualitative research in media studies.
Students meet as a cohort to translate their intellectual interests into a specific thesis project through iterative development, critique, and refinement of their research questions and proposed methods. Students will read and critique published work, gaining a sense of best practices in research design. This course is heavily reliant on peer feedback and collaboration. The culmination of this class is a thesis proposal.
In this course, students form a writing community to foster accountability and confidence in conducting, writing, and sharing original research. Instruction will address developing a regular writing habit, writing for different audiences, communicating in visual and multimedia formats, and the practices of placing work in academic journals, policy venues, or popular online and print publications. This course is heavily reliant on peer feedback.
This course explores specific methods of historical research for media texts and technologies, including multimedia archives, media archaeology, material media studies, and recreation and simulation methods of study.
The tutorial in Digital Economic Cultures covers key texts in the fields of social studies of finance, market studies, cultural economy, and economic sociology with the goal of developing a theoretical and empirical apparatus to understand the historical, present, and emerging intersection(s) of finance, media, and technology.
An exploration of the ways artificial intelligence affects culture, society, and politics.
Disability media studies is an interdisciplinary field focused on the critical study of disability as related to media texts, technologies, industries, and audiences. Drawing on disability theory, screen studies, STS, and related literatures, this tutorial engages with key concerns and concepts within current disability media studies.
This class draws on key insights from phenomenology to analyze media in everyday life. It offers methodological and theoretical tools for exploring the dynamics of media use in its fullness.
Examines foundational and contemporary developments in media and cultural theory.
This seminar introduces graduate students to the Social Studies of Media and Technology (a sub-field of Science and Technology Studies (STS)) and its major ideas and texts. We will address how it differs from other fields and the advantages and limits of our unique interdisciplinary approach.
This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Media Studies.
Focuses on strategies for teaching media (screenings, using media in class, production). Uses pedagogical strategies like backwards course design, universal design for learning, and enhancing diversity. Covers FERPA, Title IX, and other university policies. Assignments include designing, presenting, feedback on lesson plans, assignments, and syllabus design.
The course aims to help students reach a core requirement of the degree, a publishable work. Students will workshop and improve a course paper, performing additional research, analysis and research design as necessary. This class also includes significant discussion of the practice of writing and the process of scholarly publication, journal selection, article submission, revising, resubmitting, and learning from rejection notices.
A single semester of independent study under faculty supervision for MA or PhD students doing intensive research on a subject not covered in available courses. Requires approval by a Media Studies faculty member who has agreed to supervise a guided course of reading and research.
Students meet as a cohort to translate their intellectual interests into a specific thesis project through iterative development, critique, and refinement of their research questions and proposed methods. Students will read and critique published work, gaining a sense of best practices in research design. This course is heavily reliant on peer feedback and collaboration. The culmination of this class is a thesis proposal.
Introducing the history, theory, and methods of Digital Humanities. Students will learn the interdisciplinary origins of DH, debate contemporary issues, and explore opportunities at UVA. The course will cover a range of specializations including humanities computing and critical code studies, data visualization, mapping and spatial analyses, and digital archives and preservation. This course is a requirement for the Graduate Certificate in DH.
This is a variable credit course that gives students the opportunity to do supervised or unsupervised research toward their degree. These hours fulfill enrollment credits but do not count toward graded credit requirements.
In this course, students form a writing community to foster accountability and confidence in conducting, writing, and sharing original research. Instruction will address developing a regular writing habit, writing for different audiences, communicating in visual and multimedia formats, and the practices of placing work in academic journals, policy venues, or popular online and print publications. This course is heavily reliant on peer feedback.
The graduate colloquium builds an intellectual community and offers professionalization opportunities. Students learn the field, norms of scholarship, and the variety of research topics and approaches through presentations by faculty and visiting faculty. Advanced students will have the opportunity to present and hone research projects, course plans and lectures, and receive feedback on teaching and application materials, formal research talks, and interview practices.