University of Mississippi students may soon be able to earn an interdisciplinary minor in cinema. By taking courses in both cinema studies and cinema production, students will learn the critical vocabulary and perspective with which to analyze motion pictures within larger artistic, cultural, historical, political, linguistic, and global contexts, as well as provide a greater understanding of and hands-on experience with cinema production, including screenwriting, acting, directing, producing, cinematography, and editing.
“It’s going to be an interdisciplinary minor; it’s not just the theatre department,” Rhona Justice-Malloy, chair of the department of theatre arts, said. “It will also involve a number of other departments in the College of Liberal Arts.”
There are faculty members from art, English, history, library, modern languages, religious studies, Southern studies, and theatre arts involved in supporting the minor. The director of the new minor is Alan Arrivée, assistant professor of theatre arts who joined the faculty in Fall 2010.
“Everyone feels a connection with films because they watch films,” Arrivée said. “So they’re curious to see how the films actually come about.”