Louisa Stein
Associate Professor of Film & Media Culture
- Office
- Axinn Center 206
- Tel
- (802) 443-5943
- louisas@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- Friday 10:00am-12:00pm and by appointment
Louisa Stein is Associate Professor of Film and Media Culture at Middlebury College. Louisa’s courses include Aesthetics of the Moving Image, Remix Culture, Fan Video, Theories of Spectatorship, and Sherlock Holmes Across Media, among others.
Louisa is author of Millennial Fandom: Television Audiences in the Transmedia Age (University of Iowa Press, 2015). She is also co-editor of Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom (McFarland, 2012) and Teen Television: Programming and Fandom (McFarland, 2008).
Louisa’s work explores audience engagement in transmedia culture, with emphasis on questions of gender and generation. Her research investigates how meanings circulate across history, across media platforms and technologies, and between media producers and audiences. She has published on audiences and transmedia engagement in a range of journals and edited collections including Cinema Journal and How to Watch Television.
Before coming to Middlebury, Louisa headed the Critical Studies Area of the Television, Film, and New Media department at San Diego State University. She received her PhD from NYU’s Department of Cinema Studies in 2006.
Courses Taught
FMMC 0101
Aesthetics of the Moving Image
Course Description
Aesthetics of the Moving Image
How do films convey meaning, generate emotions, and work as an art form? What aspects of film are shared by television and videogames? This course is designed to improve your ability to watch, reflect on, and write about moving images. The course will be grounded in the analysis of cinema (feature films, documentaries, avant-garde, and animation) with special focus on film style and storytelling techniques. Study will extend to new audio-visual media as well, and will be considered from formal, cultural, and theoretical perspectives. Note to students: this course involves substantial streaming of films and television for assigned viewing. 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. screen
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0211
Upcoming
Kpop and Transcultural Fandom
Course Description
Kpop and Transcultural Fandom
Kpop fandom is multilingual and spans cultures and nationalities. Fans gather online and in person all over the world, commenting on live streams, making videos, buying merchandise, voting in competition shows, and participating in online communities. In vastly different contexts, fans find meaning through music, fashion, dance, identification with favorite artists, and parasocial engagement with group members and fellow fans. What draws fans from different contexts to kpop? How can we understand the cultural work of kpop fandom across national and cultural boundaries? If you're a fan yourself, how has kpop fandom informed your sense of self, identity,and community?
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0221
Sherlock Holmes Across Media
Course Description
Sherlock Holmes Across Media
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes in 1886. Since then, the consulting detective has continued to solve mysteries in literature, radio, film, television, and digital media. Indeed, Sherlock Holmes inspired what many think of as the earliest media fandom. Why has Sherlock Holmes remained such a fascinating figure for almost a century and a half? How have Holmes and his sidekick Watson (or Sherlock and John) transformed in their different iterations across media, culture, history, and nation? And what does it mean for contemporary television series Elementary and Sherlock to reimagine Sherlock Holmes for the digital age? (Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1457)
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0223
Upcoming
Fan Video:Cultr, Thry, Pract
Course Description
Fan Video: Cultures, Theory, Practice
In this course we will explore the range of fan video forms, aesthetics, cultures, and histories. Fans re-edit pre-existing media (TV, film, etc.) into new transformative works that can receive millions of views as well as critical acclaim. We will study the visual and rhetorical logics of fan video, the distribution and reception circuits for fan video, and the legal and political questions bound up in fan video practices. We will consider fan video as a critical practice, and we will learn by engaging with scholarship on fan video as well as by making our own fan videos.
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0276
Remix Culture & Social Media
Course Description
Remix Culture & Social Media Authorship
In today’s digital culture, remix functions as a core tool of self-authorship and community formation. This course examines the history and current state of digital remix cultures. We consider how remix logics shape authorship in social media spaces including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. We explore a range of remix works across media, with a focus on video. Students will produce remix video works as part of this course’s exploration of the logics, aesthetics, and impact of remix culture. 3 hrs. lecture/3 hrs. screening
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0358
Current
Theories of Spectatorship
Course Description
Theories of Spectatorship, Audience, and Fandom
In this course we explore the transcultural dynamics of spectatorship, audience engagement, and fan communities, from Hitchcock to anime, from The Beatles to BLACKPINK, from Star Trek to The Untamed. How do we engage with media texts in local and global contexts? Is our experience of media today radically different from the early years of cinema? What does it mean to be a fan? Have our notions of fandom changed over time? How do race, gender, class, national, and cultural context inform media engagement? We will consider key theoretical approaches and interrogate our own position as spectators, consumers, and fans in media culture. 3 hrs. lect./disc./3 hrs. screen.
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0507
Current
Upcoming
Independent Project
Course Description
Advanced Independent work in Film and Media Culture
Consult with a Film and Media Culture faculty member for guidelines.
Terms Taught
FMMC 0707
Upcoming
Senior Independent Work
Course Description
Senior Independent Work
After completing FMMC 0700, seniors may be approved to complete the project they developed during the previous Fall semester by registering for this independent course during the Winter Term, typically supervised by their faculty member from FMMC 0700. Students will complete an independent project in a choice of medium and format, as outlined on the departmental website. This course does not count toward the required number of credits for majors, but is required to be considered for departmental honors. In exceptional cases, students may petition to complete their projects during Spring semester.
Terms Taught
FYSE 1053
K-pop & Transcultural Fandom
Course Description
K-pop & Transcultural Fandom
K-pop fandom is multilingual and spans cultures and nationalities. Fans gather online and in person all over the world, commenting on live streams, making videos, buying merchandise, voting in competition shows, and participating in online communities. In vastly different contexts, fans find meaning through music, fashion, dance, identification with favorite artists, and parasocial engagement with group members and fellow fans. What draws fans from different contexts to k-pop? How can we understand the cultural work of k-pop fandom across national and cultural boundaries? If you’re a fan yourself, how has k-pop fandom informed your sense of self, identity, and community?
Terms Taught
Requirements
FYSE 1089
Current
Kpop and Transcultural Fandom
Course Description
Kpop and Transcultural Fandom
Kpop fandom is multilingual and spans cultures and nationalities. Fans gather online and in person all over the world, commenting on live streams, making videos, buying merchandise, voting in competition shows, and participating in online communities. In vastly different contexts, fans find meaning through music, fashion, dance, identification with favorite artists, and parasocial engagement with group members and fellow fans. What draws fans from different contexts to kpop? How can we understand the cultural work of kpop fandom across national and cultural boundaries? If you're a fan yourself, how has kpop fandom informed your sense of self, identity,and community?
Terms Taught
Requirements