The Ph.D. program prepares students to engage in rigorous and innovative scholarship and teaching in the theory, history and critical analysis of one or more media in ways that encompass diverse cultural contexts and historical periods.
The Department of Modern Culture and Media is committed to the study of media in the context of a broader examination of cultural, social, and political formations. Modernity is understood as intimately interwoven with technical modes of production and reproduction. Those in the department study: print, insofar as it is connected to mass dissemination; photography; sound recording; cinema; video; television; and digital media. We examine media not in the narrow sense, but as immanent to the phenomena they produce and record.
Plans of study are individualized according to students' interests. Students may emphasize the scholarship of one medium or of several media and their interrelationships, but coursework and exams will also include a component in textual, cultural, and/or social theory. This combination enhances both disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary flexibility.
Additional Resources
The Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Research in Culture and Media Studies supports a range of activities, including public events (e.g., film festivals on contemporary French and Francophone cinemas, Turkish diaspora cinema in Germany, and African-Africana cinemas, and digital performance events) and scholarly conferences (e.g., on television and nationality, modernism and modernity, the archaeology of digital multimedia, and Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project). The Brown Film Archives is a pedagogical and research collection of film and video material in a variety of formats, including approximately 800 16mm film prints. The Department has a history of collaboration with other University units, such as the departments of Africana Studies, American Civilization, Comparative Literature, English, and History of Art and Architecture; the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women; etc.