Fall 2026
Prereq: none
Units: 3-0-9 HASS-H; Can be repeated for credit
Contemporary networked media landscapes are awash with remakes and remediations, from television reboots and movie adaptations to memes and genAI. What drives the remaking of the material world in new media technologies and the reproduction of stories and archetypes across centuries? Do remakes promise correction of past wrongs or merely their remediation in new form? When works of media produced in vastly different historical periods exist simultaneously in digital formats, do the concepts of original and remake lose their relevance or come more clearly into view? In this course, we engage cinematic works as complex intersections of history, culture, aesthetics, and technology. We will consider philosophical accounts of authenticity before and after the advent of photography; the purported aims and interpretations of cinematic remakes from narrative features to the avant-garde; and questions as to whether repetition is inherent to understandings of cultural history. In addition to analytical essays and historical research, students have the opportunity to produce their own cinematic remakes.