The seminar will engage with the major debates and disputes about cinema since the rise of the global media conglomerates – global blockbusters, “independent cinema,” and national cinemas. We will look at modes of production and distribution, technological changes, aesthetics, and the political and social significance of contemporary cinema. As a topic for their research and seminar paper, students can choose texts or theoretical topics within contemporary cinema, or texts or institutions to which it has been compared by researchers, such as other media and classical or early cinema.