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Course Catalog

VISUAL RHETORIC: PERSUASIVE IMAGES (CM3055)

This course will examine the hows and whys by which visual cultural products circulate, attempt to persuade audiences, and have effects in contemporary media cultures. These include: film, television, advertising, public spaces, photojournalism, and new media. The course answers the question: How do images, audio-visual products, and their place in media cultures shape us as individuals, groups, or nations?

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD (CM3060)

This course examines the intersection of food and the senses from an anthropological perspective. We will explore the intersection between food and culture; the impact of social, political and economic contexts on our foods and foodways; French food culture; and taste, cuisine and commensality as forms of inter-cultural communication. Students apply class readings and practice ethnographic methodologies in a few short study trips.

ANTHROPOLOGY OF CITIES (CM3061)

Presents an anthropological approach to the study of cities, providing students with theoretical and methodological tools to think critically about the meaning of urban life today. Approaches this topic from a cross-cultural perspective, with a number of readings focusing on Paris in particular. Students will undertake a Paris-based qualitative research project during the course of the semester.

MEDIA SEMIOTICS (CM3062)

This course introduces students to theories of semiotics as they are applied to mass media. Semiotics is the study of meaning-making; we will study how meaning is made from media. We will study a range of media forms, including television, cinema, websites, advertising and print media, as sign systems in order to analyze how cultural meanings are produced and received within the mass media. We will apply key theories and concepts relevant to media semiotics, including genre, narratology, linguistics and discourse theory.

ADVERTISING (CM3067)

The world of advertising has seen dramatic change over the past decades and what used to be mass communication still in the 90s is about to evolve into the "market of one" as described by P&G, a global consumer goods company. The availability of Big Data and man's capacity to use massive amounts of information will soon allow advertisers to target people individually, directly catering to their personal needs and desires. However, in this quickly changing world of communications, the basic workings of advertising & communications have remained the same. While media choices have evolved, understanding and applying the rules and factors that produce effective advertising has not and will not change in the foreseeable future. This class provides a thorough understanding of what works in advertising and what doesn't. Among other things, students will acquire the skills to write a single-minded copy strategy and creative brief, how to plan for the right media in offline and online, how identify the target audience and how to recognize good creative ideas. The course will convey initial notions on how to develop advertising concepts in print, TV, digital and content strategy as well as social media communications. The course will look at over 100 ads as illustrations and for analysis purposes and will teach students the elementary principles of how to develop effective advertising by using a teaching method inspired by the Harvard Business School.

CULT'L DIMENSIONS OF THE EURO. IDEA (CM3070)

Explores the ways in which Europeans have used notions of culture to articulate ideas of European selfhood and non-European 'Others', the cultural dimensions of European integration and enlargement and the efforts of the Council of Europe, the European Union, private foundations and NGO networks to elaborate cultural policy in and for Europe.

MEDIA AESTHETICS (CM3075)

What we consider to be pleasing, appropriate and/or beautiful is conditioned by culture and 'habitus'. This course examines how global media relates to varying aesthetic standards: the role of media in defining contemporary aesthetic values as well as in responding to them.

ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY (CM3080)

This course looks at how culture promotes connections between humans, their landscapes and ecosystems. We will be discussing the different ways humans use, interact, engage and manipulate the natural world that surrounds them. Central to an understanding of this relationship is the meaning people give to the concept of nature. This course will explore the leaning attributed to nature across different cultural contexts and religious traditions.

CIVIC MEDIA, TACTICAL MEDIA (CM3082)

This course addresses the use of communication technologies for mediating public discourse, organizing democratic protests or denouncing state violence. Through a practice and research-based approach to digital media productions, we interrogate the media’s capacity to produce “civic media”, in other words design a space of possibility, “a way of imagining a future of technology that [is] pro-social and for public benefit.”

TOPICS IN COMMUNICATIONS (CM3091)

Topics vary. Using analytic skills learned in core courses, students work with an AUP faculty member, visiting scholar or professional in an area of current interest in the field to be determined by the instructor and the faculty of the Global Communications department.
“For the course description, please find this course in the respective semester on the public course browser: https://www.aup.edu/academics/course-catalog/by-term.”