Louisa Stein
Office
Axinn Center 206
Tel
(802) 443-5943
Email
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

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

Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART

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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

Spring 2025

Requirements

CMP, SOC

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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

Fall 2021

Requirements

ART, EUR, LIT

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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

Winter 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART

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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

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023

Requirements

AMR, ART, SOC

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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

Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, CW, SOC

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Course Description

Advanced Independent work in Film and Media Culture
Consult with a Film and Media Culture faculty member for guidelines.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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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

Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Winter 2024, Winter 2025

View in Course Catalog

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

Fall 2023

Requirements

CMP, CW, SOC

View in Course Catalog

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

Fall 2024

Requirements

CMP, CW, SOC

View in Course Catalog