DESMA 8
Media Histories
Description: Lecture, three hours; outside study, 12 hours. Synthetic overview of optical media and aesthetic movements covering past two centuries: photography and industrialization/Romanticism (1850 to 1900), cinema and modernism (1900 to 1950), television and postmodernism (1950 to 2000), and digital media and unimodernism (2000 to 2050). How such movements can inform generative work and how understanding these media becomes essential in emerging era of digital humanities. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
2 of 3
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Had him as my TA for DESMA 8 and was very helpful, clear, and easy-going. I took this as a GE with no previous DESMA classes or experience and passed with an A+, he grades papers very leniently and the final was straightforward and easy. I thoroughly enjoyed this class, it felt like a nice break from my other classes.
Winter 2021 - Had him as my TA for DESMA 8 and was very helpful, clear, and easy-going. I took this as a GE with no previous DESMA classes or experience and passed with an A+, he grades papers very leniently and the final was straightforward and easy. I thoroughly enjoyed this class, it felt like a nice break from my other classes.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Professor Harries is an extremely disconnected lecturer with a poorly designed class. His lectures were very dry and unorganized, often with out a specific theme of topic. It seemed like he would just ramble on about whatever he wanted and even made up stuff. He said this was okay because, and I quote, "That's what you do when you have a PhD. " The readings were irrelevant but the midterm about the things he made up in class. The lectures were fairly useless after the first midterm because the final was take home. For not having to go to a lot of the lectures and doing minimal work, the class is overall fairly easy but boring and sometimes absolutely pointless.
Winter 2016 - Professor Harries is an extremely disconnected lecturer with a poorly designed class. His lectures were very dry and unorganized, often with out a specific theme of topic. It seemed like he would just ramble on about whatever he wanted and even made up stuff. He said this was okay because, and I quote, "That's what you do when you have a PhD. " The readings were irrelevant but the midterm about the things he made up in class. The lectures were fairly useless after the first midterm because the final was take home. For not having to go to a lot of the lectures and doing minimal work, the class is overall fairly easy but boring and sometimes absolutely pointless.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - TAKE THIS CLASS! Professor Lunenfeld is by far one of the sweetest professors I've ever had and he is so passionate about Media History. At first I was skeptical to take it bc I know history classes can sometimes be super heavy on the workload but this class wasn't at all. IT WAS SO EASY! Each week there was a super short multiple-choice quiz about the lecture material and the answers were literally in the slides so you can easily get a 100% on them if you download the slides. And the questions were super simple, nothing that was conceptual. He offers extra credit that's worth 5% and you get 10% just for showing up to discussion. We had one midterm and final paper that were each 1,750 words and it was super simple. It wasn't one long paper, each paper had a set of questions that you answered in under 500 words or something like that so it was very doable and I always did them the day they were due. The class content is super interesting because it talked a lot about pop culture, history of cameras and other media inventions, famous actors/actresses, and famous movies and tv shows. I never did any of the readings and had no difficulty writing the papers. Also he's overall a funny guy that actually cares about his students.
Winter 2021 - TAKE THIS CLASS! Professor Lunenfeld is by far one of the sweetest professors I've ever had and he is so passionate about Media History. At first I was skeptical to take it bc I know history classes can sometimes be super heavy on the workload but this class wasn't at all. IT WAS SO EASY! Each week there was a super short multiple-choice quiz about the lecture material and the answers were literally in the slides so you can easily get a 100% on them if you download the slides. And the questions were super simple, nothing that was conceptual. He offers extra credit that's worth 5% and you get 10% just for showing up to discussion. We had one midterm and final paper that were each 1,750 words and it was super simple. It wasn't one long paper, each paper had a set of questions that you answered in under 500 words or something like that so it was very doable and I always did them the day they were due. The class content is super interesting because it talked a lot about pop culture, history of cameras and other media inventions, famous actors/actresses, and famous movies and tv shows. I never did any of the readings and had no difficulty writing the papers. Also he's overall a funny guy that actually cares about his students.
2 of 3
