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What is Film?

Film is one of the most versatile subjects in the arts and humanities, appearing in courses ranging from media studies and communication to sociology, psychology, and cultural criticism. What makes it academically compelling is its dual nature: film functions simultaneously as an art form with distinct technical and aesthetic conventions and as a cultural artifact that reflects the values, tensions, and relationships of the society that produces it. Students are asked to analyze specific works such as Mean Girls, Tough Guise, Sarafina, Wit, Menace II Society, and True Grit precisely because these films open up larger conversations about identity, violence, gender, race, and human behavior.

The papers archived here approach film from several directions. Some focus on technical and production elements, examining terminology, cinematography, and the conventions of silent film. Others take a sociological or psychological angle, using specific movies to explore addiction, domestic violence, and human behavior. Comparative essays place films side by side to highlight contrasting storytelling choices, while genre analysis papers examine why a film like The Hangover operates as comedy. Reflective and reaction-based writing also appears frequently, asking students to connect a film's scenes and story to real-world experience.

A strong film essay anchors its argument in specific scenes, dialogue, or cinematic techniques rather than plot summary. A well-scoped thesis makes a clear interpretive claim about what a film communicates and how it achieves that effect. Evidence drawn from the viewer's experience of particular moments carries more weight than general impressions. The most common pitfall is treating a film purely as a story to retell rather than as a constructed text where every choice — sound, framing, character relationship — contributes to meaning.

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Research Paper Doctorate

Realism and stereotype in John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood

Keepin' it real -- Real-ism, that is: Today's 'take' on John Singleton's 1991 film, "Boyz in the Hood"

Research Paper Doctorate

Vladimir Nabokov and Russian intellectual exile in the twentieth century

¶ … Russian emigres draws upon a very distinct Russian tradition of intellectuals in exile. Both the Russian Empire and Soviet Union had many exiles, both inside the empire and outside it.

Research Paper Doctorate

How pornography promotes sexual violence against women

How Pornography Promotes Sexual Violence Against Women

Paper Undergraduate

Emotional immaturity and dementia in "The Savages"

Elderly Lenny Savage has began showing signs of dementia, and shortly after he takes to smearing his feces on the walls of his Arizona home, his ailing long-term girlfriend suddenly dies. His adult children Wendy and Jon have little choice but to fly to Arizona and see what can be done for Lenny, but their long-simmering animosity makes it hard for them to deal with the realities of Lenny's condition. The film looks at their struggles with growing up, mortality, and coming to grips with life.

Paper Undergraduate

Female identity formation in Push, Soledad, and the Interpreter

This essay compares and contrasts the process of identity formation seen in three different novels featuring female characters making their way in New York. Although the novels Push, Soledad, and The Interpreter all feature extremely different plots and characters, they nevertheless produce a congruent image of identity formation as it relates to ethnic and familial influence. By examining the main characters from each novel, one is able to see how successful identity formation depends on integrating the past into the present, rather than ignoring that past.

Research Paper Doctorate

Audience response to cinematic transition techniques in Death of a Salesman

The topic will be how we can systematically look at how audiences respond to specific cinematic techniques.

Paper Doctorate

Humor and heroism in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles

One of the most intriguing things about humans is that they have the ability to laugh in the face of danger. Even when they are in critical situations, people know that using humor is likely to make things easier for them and that optimism is one of the best methods to avoid feeling lost. Mel Brooks' motion picture Blazing Saddles and Richard Donner's film The Toy both present desperate individuals as they manage to find impressive solutions to seemingly impossible situations. The central characters in the two movies are individuals whom society tends to discriminate and who are unlikely to have success when considering their general condition.

Oakmont Country Club's history and design legacy

Case study looking at a modern American golf course, Pittsburg's Oakmont Country Club, as an iconic version of American leisure time, sustainability, the history of golf. Offers an outline of a 30 minute promotional video that outlines the history and complexity of the course. Includes quotes from great players and a historical overview of Oakmont.

Paper Doctorate

Roberto Rossellini's Paisan and the emergence of Italian neorealism

This essay on Italian director Roberto Rossellini's 1946 Paisan discusses the emerging aesthetic of Neorealism in Italian postwar film. Paisan adopts many techniques from the novel, in terms of its multifaceted method of storytelling. It is neither realistic nor a false spectacle. There is an authorial point-of-view but the director also draws upon his experience as a witness to history.

Thesis Undergraduate

Nazi scientists and the evolution of social psychology in America

One point in the evolution of social psychology that interests me is the Nazi influence upon social psychology in the United States. Before and after WWII, Nazis in various sciences sought and found refuge in the United…

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