Critical Media Practice, Harvard University

Critical Media Practice reflects changing patterns of knowledge production, and in particular that knowledge is increasingly incorporated into novel multi-media configurations in which written language plays only a part. Audiovisual media have a different relationship to, and reveal different dimensions of, the world from exclusively verbal sign systems. They are also inherently interdisciplinary, and frequently engage a broader public than the academy alone. Students interested in making original interpretive projects in image, sound, and/or emerging hypermedia technologies in conjunction with their written scholarship may wish to pursue the CMP Secondary Field. It offers training in production and postproduction in different media formats and genres, including documentary and ethnographic film and video; hypermedia, internet, and database projects; approaches to working with audio, including phonography, exhibition, and music composition; video and multimedia installation; and cognate genres.